Swing, Champagne and the St. Regis Orchestra: A Night of Glamour at the Winter Garden
There are places in Florence where the evening begins well before the first toast. The Winter Garden Bar at The St. Regis Florence, known for its magnificent glass-roofed courtyard and for a kind of elegance that never dates, is certainly one of them.
On Friday, September 25, starting at 7 p.m., it takes center stage again with “Orchestra & Champagne: A Celebration of Glamour and Taste”, an evening built around the music of the St. Regis Orchestra, Bollinger champagne and a tasting menu that reinvents the ritual of the Italian aperitivo.
The idea is to bring back something of the great hotel nights of the past, when live music, elegance and good company all belonged to the same moment.
From New York to Naples with the St. Regis Orchestra
At the heart of the evening is the St. Regis Orchestra, with a repertoire that starts from the timeless pulse of swing and traces a musical route from New York to Naples.
This is not simply dinner with a band in the background. The orchestra becomes part of the experience, bringing back to the Winter Garden the sense of performance that has always belonged to the great international hotels.
It continues a direction The St. Regis Florence has been building for years around music and entertainment: evenings when the hotel opens its rooms to the city and turns them into a stage where different worlds meet.
This time the thread is unmistakably glamour, played without nostalgia through music, mixology and food.
Bollinger champagne and the ritual of the sabrage
The other lead of the evening is Bollinger, with a moment devoted to the sabrage, the celebrated ritual of opening a champagne bottle with a saber.
A piece of theater that belongs to the history of champagne and that, for one night, becomes part of the Winter Garden’s stage set.
The experience includes a glass of Bollinger or a signature cocktail, leaving guests free to choose between champagne and mixology.
Around that moment the kitchen has built an aperitivo that has little to do with the usual buffet, one that carries the evening forward through small bites and a single central plate.
An aperitivo that turns into a tasting menu
The September 25 menu starts from dishes anyone would recognize from Italian and Tuscan cooking, reread for the Winter Garden.
It opens with focaccia with cherry tomatoes and oregano and gnocco fritto with Parma ham and stracchino cream. Then comes a small sandwich with seared octopus, burrata and salmoriglio sauce, pappa al pomodoro with basil oil and a crisp rice arancina served with saffron mayonnaise.
The dish that ties the kitchen most directly to the theme of the night, though, is the risotto with Bollinger Champagne, figs, Gorgonzola cream and cured ham powder.
To close, a selection of petits fours, while champagne and cocktails run through the whole evening.
It is a format that uses the aperitivo as a starting point for something longer: not a traditional dinner, but a run of small courses to enjoy while the music keeps going.
A St. Regis evening open to the city
This is probably the most interesting thing about the night.
The Winter Garden is one of the most recognizable rooms in Florentine hospitality, but evenings like Orchestra & Champagne make it possible to experience it without being a hotel guest. Which makes it an occasion for Florentines too, anyone who wants a different kind of night out, stepping into the world of The St. Regis Florence for a few hours.
And on September 25 the ingredients are the ones reserved for big occasions: a live orchestra, swing, champagne, the sabrage and the food, under the great glass roof of the Winter Garden.
It is an evening that looks back at the appeal of those older nights without simply trying to rebuild them. It takes a few of their rituals — dressing up to go out, meeting over a cocktail, listening to an orchestra — and brings them into the present.
Because every now and then it is still rather nice to have a reason to make a Friday night feel like something.
