%2520copy.webp&w=3840&q=75&dpl=dpl_8M1iYevpDc3WE7JbDECn2amWkGrx)
5 min read
There is a moment on Peristil, somewhere between eight and nine in the evening, when the floodlights come up on the bell tower and the whole square changes colour. Stone that was bleached white all afternoon turns amber. The daytime crowd that came to photograph the cathedral thins out. And the ancient steps down the eastern side of the square fill with people sitting on deep red cushions, glass in hand, in no hurry at all.
That is what an evening at Lvxor looks like. Not a bar with a view of Diocletian's Palace, but a bar inside it — in the courtyard that has been the ceremonial heart of this city since the year 305, roughly seventeen centuries before anyone thought to put a cocktail list on it. You will not be shown to a table on a terrace, because there is no terrace. You sit on the steps themselves, below the columns and the sphinx the emperor had shipped from Luxor, and someone brings you a drink.
Where you actually sit
This is the thing visitors ask about first, so it is worth being exact. Lvxor's guests sit on cushions and at small tables set out on the ancient steps of the square itself. The cushions go out in the late afternoon, they are deep red, and they are not reserved — you take whichever one is free. Peristil is a public square, and that is half the pleasure of it: a klapa group rehearses on the steps opposite, a wedding party crosses on a Saturday evening, and the light works its way down the bell tower for the best part of an hour.
What is served out on the square is drinks and the lighter half of the kitchen — cocktails, wine, beer, coffee, pizza and starters. Pasta, risotto and the main dishes are served indoors, under the painted ceiling and the stone arches. Most evenings people do both: something long and cold on the steps while the sun goes, dinner inside, and then back out for a last one before midnight.
What to drink
The card runs to thirty-two drinks, two of them without alcohol. Two more are worth the walk on their own: both are built on Macallan 12 Double Cask, a single malt most bars keep for sipping and charge accordingly. Everything is mixed to order at the bar inside and carried out to the steps.
The Refresher
Macallan 12 Double Cask, lemon and lemongrass soda. Built on a whisky most bars keep behind the counter.
A long drink built on a single malt, which is close to heresy and entirely the point. The Macallan's dried fruit and oak come through the lemongrass rather than being buried by it, and the whole thing arrives tall and very cold. Order it first, while the light is still on the stone.
Rob Roy
Macallan 12 Double Cask, Martini Bianco and angostura.
A Manhattan that went to Scotland: the same build, with the malt where the rye would be. The Bianco keeps it rounder and softer than the classic, and the bitters hold the two together. Stirred, never shaken, and better once the sun is off the square.
Negroni
Bombay Sapphire gin, Martini Rosso, Campari
Three parts, one glass, nowhere to hide. Campari's bitterness is the whole point of it, and the sweet vermouth is what persuades that bitterness to sit down. This is the one for the hour the swifts come out — a drink that wakes you up rather than settles you.
Old Fashioned
Woodford Reserve bourbon, sugar, Angostura bitters
The oldest recipe on the card and the one with the least to hide behind: bourbon, sugar, bitters, ice, time. Woodford Reserve brings vanilla and a little corn sweetness to it. It rewards slowness, which makes it the glass to be holding when the floodlights come up on the bell tower.
Espresso Martini
Finlandia vodka, espresso, Kahlúa
The drink that ends dinner and starts the evening over. The espresso is pulled to order, which is why it arrives with that pale head on it and why it tastes of coffee rather than of coffee syrup. If you have eaten inside and the square is still full, this is what you come back out for.
Hugo
Prosecco, elderflower, soda and mint.
The lightest thing on the list, and the reason to come at seven. Elderflower, prosecco and mint over enough ice to stay cold as long as the sky above the peristyle keeps its colour. Low in alcohol and high in the particular pleasure of having nowhere to be.
The full card runs to thirty-two drinks, including a Piña Colada and a Caribbean Sun made without alcohol.
Explore the full cocktail card
Thirty-two drinks with what goes into each one, photographed, in your language. Wine, sparkling and the rest of the bar are a click away from it.
The hour to come
Come at seven if you want the light. The sun leaves the square early — the palace walls are high — but the sky above the peristyle holds its colour for another hour, and that is the hour for something long and cold: a Hugo, an Aperol Spritz, a Limoncello Spritz. By nine the floodlights are doing the work instead, the square has emptied of day-trippers, and the drinks get shorter and darker.
From eight until eleven, every evening of the season, there is live music on the square. It is acoustic, it is free, and there is no ticket — you do not book for it, you are simply sitting there when it starts. In winter the music moves indoors and mostly to weekends. Either way the bar runs until midnight, and the last hour, when the square is lit and nearly empty, is the one people remember.
Reserve a table for this evening
A reservation holds a table in the room inside, which is where dinner is served and where you want to be if the weather turns. Booking goes through OpenTable and takes about a minute.
The cushions out on the steps cannot be reserved — they are first come, first served, and on a summer evening they go early. If you want both, book the table and come an hour before it.