Bemelmans Bar

Bemelmans Bar is a cocktail lounge and piano bar in the Carlyle Hotel, on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City. The bar opened in the 1940s, serving wealthy Upper East Siders and numerous celebrities. Bemelmans has distinctive Art Deco decor, including murals of Madeline painted by Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator of Madeline. It has been known for multiple drinks, though in recent years it is best known for its martinis, often served very dirty.

The bar opened in 1947, and has been a place for celebrities and socialites to frequent since that time. In the early 2000s, the bar was renovated and its cocktail program was remade by bartender Audrey Saunders. In the 2020s, the bar temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon reopening, Bemelmans has seen a surge in popularity, especially with younger New Yorkers, eager for an authentic New York experience.

The bar is designed in an Art Deco style with a gold-leaf ceiling and discreet lighting, including a small shaded lamp with an amber glow on each of its 21 glass-top tables. It is cozy, and has chocolate leather banquettes lining the wall, as well as a grand piano. It is typically packed with people and noisy. Bartenders have worn bright Ferrari-red suit jackets while working since possibly around 2000.

The bar's atmosphere is often written up as a unique experience. Foster Kamer, writing for New York magazine in 2020, said "The acoustics are perfect. When it's busy, the room hums as if it's the center of the world, and when it's quiet, as a veritable oasis of serene calm, it throws into sharp relief the relative chaos of the city outside. It doesn't sparkle; it glows — in rose gold, brass, and maroon hues."

Bemelmans is managed by Dimitrios Michalopoulos, who began working at the hotel as an assistant manager around 2016. Head bartender Luis Serrano has worked at Bemelmans since 1989; 36 years ago (1989). He is the second-longest tenured bartender there, after Tommy Rowles, who worked there for 53 years. Other bartenders involved in managing Bemelmans have included notable mixologists Dale DeGroff and Audrey Saunders. DeGroff hired Saunders as bar manager around 2001. Saunders excelled at her job there, and was later approached to be an operating partner and the creative talent for the Pegu Club bar she became known for. In 2007, noted bartender Brian Van Flandern left Per Se to rework the bar program at Bemelmans.

The bar has always been known for its music. For over 14 seasons, Jazz pianist and vocalist Barbara Carroll performed at Bemelmans. For about 25 years, composer and pianist Earl Rose has played at the bar. The bar was reviewed and listed first among the best piano bars in New York City by Town and Country magazine, which stated that "no list of notable piano bars in New York would be complete without Bemelmans".

Bemelmans Bar is known for its walls, decorated with a work titled Central Park: a pale yellow mural depicting Madeline, her eleven classmates, and their guardian in Central Park across four seasons. The painting has many vignettes with no central narrative; the vignettes are scattered throughout the room divided by painted trees and grass. The mural includes typical park scenes along with whimsical animals like a monkey-waiter serving two rabbit gentlemen, an ice-skating elephant, cigar-smoking bunnies, and rabbits building a snow bunny. The work was painted by Ludwig Bemelmans, author of Madeline, in 1947. Bemelmans is the namesake of the bar, and his mural there is his only artwork remaining on display to the public. Other murals were in the Hapsburg House restaurant in the city, a nightclub on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, and the playroom on Aristotle Onassis's yacht. Instead of accepting payment for his work, Bemelmans received a year and a half of accommodations at the Carlyle for himself and his family. Bemelmans painted himself into one of the scenes, depicted as a waiter or bartender holding a bill. As of 2000, this portion of the mural is a few feet to the right of guests facing the bar's cash register. The entire artwork gives a playful feel to the otherwise sophisticated bar, adorned with dark leather and wood.

As of 2021^[update], the most-requested drink at Bemelmans is a martini, almost always dirty, and often very dirty. The bartenders make an estimated 1,000 martinis per night there; the head bartender Luis Serrano estimated about 80 percent of customers order one on a weekend. The bar also became known for The Carlyle Punch, once its signature cocktail, though no longer on the menu. Martinis were not always the most popular drink; in prior decades it was Black Russians, scotch on the rocks, gin & tonics, and vodka-tonics; Manhattans also came close to the popularity of martinis there at one time.