The best martinis in Philly

Almanac has two martinis. The first, Hey Mami, changes with the seasons, laced with savory notes contributed by frequently rotating components like mushrooms, ramps, spring onions, or sungold tomatoes. (A mid-summer iteration of Hey Mami featured shio koji tomato brine, Japanese Haku vodka, Manzanilla sherry, and shochu.) Bartender Rob Scott will also happily mix you up a Sadōtini with sweet potato shochu, a blend of Japanese gin and vodka, house-made amazake, egg white, and matcha, served with a matcha-flavored Pocky stick garnish. 

Rittenhouse’s Scandinavian cocktail lounge might be a bar or it might be an art gallery. If you’ve ever wanted to sip a martini under a beehive fashioned out of beads and pipecleaners, then fall down a rabbit hole in a funky, muraled bathroom, Andra Hem is your spot. Order the “bartender’s choice” martini, and you’ll answer the usual questions: Vodka or gin? Dirty or with a twist? They might slide a dirty martini made with Icelandic gin across the bar, or maybe a Vesper made with Tito’s vodka, or — a recent favorite — a floral martini with a dash of orange bitters and Nolet’s dry gin.

Snag one of Caletta’s eight barstools to watch their bartenders shake up esoteric cocktails with obscure-sounding names. Their house martini is the Feast of Corpus Christi, with Askur gin, Japanese bitters, sweet potato shochu, cherry blossom-scented soy sauce, and an orange twist. It’s savory, dirty without olive brine. Ask for a dirty gin martini and you’ll be presented with Gillo, a small-batch Sardinian gin distilled from beet sugar, served with olives or vermouth.

Fiorella’s pasta water martini — shaken up with juniper-y Revivalist gin, olive brine, and actual pasta water — is wonderfully salty, silky, and opaque from its key ingredient. The savory, starchy water supplants the expected dry vermouth. It’s a perfect cocktail, floral, rich, and a little weird. Afterwards, you might think: Who needs vermouth anyway?

Not only can you get one of Philly’s best burgers at Fountain Porter, you can also get one of the city’s best martinis. Yes, it’s known for their extensive selection of beers and a tight, highly curated wine list, and for being a record-only listening bar of sorts. But they’ll also make you an excellent martini with a blend of Burnett’s and Bluecoat gin, a hint of Martini Rossi vermouth, and a single fat Spanish olive plunked into it.

Paul MacDonald, head bartender of this Rittenhouse institution, has an avowed dislike of dirty martinis. Come for his sherry martini instead: He replaces vermouth with a dry sherry. Or try the Cheap Suit, consisting of Boodle’s, Cocchi Americano, and a lemon coriander shrub; it’s lightly vegetal and dangerously quaffable.

Agave spirits can also render an excellent martini-esque cocktail, as seen in La Jefa’s Enebro. Juniper-infused Ocho Blanco tequila is blended with Cocchi Americano and quinine-flavored Cap Corse Blanc. It’s presented in a delicate flute (the rest is served to you in a sidecar kept on ice) along with little bowls containing buttery Castelvetrano olives and a lemon twist. It’ll make you wonder why every other martini doesn’t come this way.

In an olive oil-drenched menu, do you really need to drink more of it? The answer is yes. Le Virtu’s Olio martini has earned its place among my absolute favorite martinis in Philly. Askur gin is washed with olio novello (early-harvest extra-virgin olive oil) from Abruzzo, then shaken with Dolin vermouth, dribbled with fat droplets of more olio novello, garnished with Castelvetrano olives, and delivered to your patio table in a Nick and Nora glass. It’s a perfect start (or finish) to a rich Abruzzese dinner.

All the cocktails at this Kensington corner bar are batched, so their gin martini is poured from a repurposed wine bottle. To make it, the bartenders blend Tanqueray and Bombay Sapphire with Dolin Blanc vermouth and Martini & Rossi extra dry vermouth, with a splash of Regan’s orange bitters. The mix is a 50:50 ratio of gin to vermouth, putting this martini on the sweeter side, which makes it more crushable. It’s served in an Irish coffee glass with a pitted Castelvetrano olive.

There are three martinis on this Rittenhouse restaurant’s cocktail list if you count their “Shrimp Cocktail,” which consists of London dry gin, pickled shrimp brine, and dill bitters. That one may be slightly unconventional, but the Tuxedo #2 and 50/50 Martini are both fabulous twists on classics. The 50/50 uses Plymouth gin and is extremely vermouthy. The Tuxedo #2 (London dry gin, dry vermouth, absinthe, maraschino, and orange bitters) is the perfect complement to My Loup’s shellfish-forward appetizers.

The cocktails at Fishtown’s dark, moody Next of Kin are excellent across the board. My go-to is their Vesper martini, a house blend of vodka and gin plus aromatized Lillet — “To stay true to the classic Vesper build,” said bartender Kyle Wright, “with a touch of our housemade elderflower cordial to soften the edges and bring a little herbaceous pop.” For something fruitier, try the French martini — a swirl of raspberry, fresh pineapple, and vodka. Both drinks arrive laced with flecks of ice, a marker of an excellent martini.

A martini’s best accompaniment is a raw oyster, so Center City’s Oyster House takes theirs very seriously, with the utmost secrecy. It involves house-made vermouth and a Bluecoat-Sipsmith gin blend. The result is a house martini that is crisp and scented with cinnamon, landing somewhere in between a martini blanc and a dry martini.

One perk of being — or knowing — a member of this South Philly club is savoring their house martini, made with olive oil-washed Ketel One vodka and a blend of dry and bianco vermouths. For more martini options, head upstairs to the sultry, gold-curtained President’s Room, where vodka-based clarified martini with gorgonzola-stuffed olives is one of the best dirty martinis in Philly. If your taste skews sweet, the upstairs bar also makes a surprisingly well-balanced Nutella martini (garnished with a Bueno bar square) and a lemon drop martini with house limoncello.

Parc’s niçoise martini is pink from nicoise olive brine. It’s oily and clean-tasting all at once — the brine doesn’t linger upon the tongue. They use delicate Harlen Wheatley vodka from Buffalo Trace and Carpano Bianco vermouth and it’s garnished with three bitter, fruity Nicoise olives. Parc’s bar, while teeming during the day, is quieter and ideal for conversations and post-dinner drinks later in the evening.

The Absolut vodka in the martini at this Fishtown cocktail lab gets fat-washed — i.e., frozen with olive oil blended with coriander and pink peppercorn, then strained for a smoother texture and nuanced flavor. The bartender will ask you if you want it medium or light dirty (I go with medium). If you’re not a vodka person, by all means order a martini with Beefeater, Bluecoat, or Hendricks. Make it dirty with a spritz of olive bitters.

Depending on your choice of liquor, roughly $20 will get you a martini with the best view of Philadelphia — on the 60th floor of Comcast Technology Center. At SkyHigh, the standard dirty martini is made with Bluecoat gin and comes with ice chips drifting along the surface. Three Castelvetrano olives are stabbed with a bamboo pick, soaking up martini juice. It’s a solid cocktail, but remember you’re here to see (both the view and fellow patrons) and be seen.

The martini here glows gold thanks to some Suze, an herbaceous French bitter flavored with gentian root. The vibrant color is visually echoed by the lemon zest floating inside the cocktail and the mustardy vinyl booths and stools in this East Passyunk Euro bar. The drink is served in a classic martini glass, pre-batched and poured from repurposed bottles of Askur gin — the cocktail’s base spirit, rounded out by both blanc and dry Dolin vermouth. The result is herbal and bright.

The Duck Around and Find Out martini at this Northern Liberties izakaya is round, robust, and mouthwatering. Roku Japanese gin is steeped with star anise, MSG, and peppercorns that’s then washed in duck fat (left over from a duck confit onigiri dish that was on Kappo’s menu), shaken with bergamot liqueur and Lillet that’s been smoked with rosemary. It’s served in a Nick and Nora glass with a sprig of rosemary clipped to its lip.