Haute Living / London / Art

What Does a Work of Art Taste Like? Bacchanalia, London’s Most Over-The-Top Restaurant, Is Pouring the Answer

Palette, the new cocktail menu at Bacchanalia and Apollo's Muse in Mayfair, turns the restaurant's marble, mosaics and sculpture into drinks.

By Laura Schreffler

Haute Living

October 22, 2026 · 4 min read

Order the marble. At Bacchanalia, the Mayfair restaurant where Damien Hirst sculptures share the room with Greco-Roman grandeur and restraint is treated as a missed opportunity, the walls, floors and statues have finally made it onto the drinks list. Palette, the new cocktail collection at Bacchanalia and its antiquities-filled lounge, Apollo’s Muse, turns the rooms’ burgundy marble, black onyx, mosaic floors and sculptural details into cocktails such as Rosso Levanto, Mosaic and Onyx, served from a menu designed as a magazine that shows you exactly what inspired every glass.

There are restaurants you visit for dinner. And there are restaurants that make you forget you were supposed to be looking at the menu.

Bacchanalia is firmly the latter. It’s a room that demands your attention before anyone has offered you a drink. Now the drinks are giving you a reason to look around even more closely.

Bacchanalia London Photo Credit: Caprice Holdings

From the Walls to the Glass

Palette takes the spaces’ painted surfaces, natural stone, mosaic floors and sculptural forms as its starting point, moving between what you see and what you taste. In a restaurant that already feels like walking into an elaborate artistic production, it pulls guests deeper into the show, using details they might otherwise admire, photograph and walk straight past.

Take Rosso Levanto. Inspired by deep burgundy marble, it clarifies Casamigos Blanco Tequila with blackcurrant, prune and pomegranate, matching the richness of the stone with dark, generous fruit. The name hands you a material to consider; the recipe is the team’s interpretation of it. That’s what makes the collection clever: burgundy marble might suggest dark fruit, but someone still has to build a drink you want to finish. The art is the starting point. Balance is the job.

Bacchanalia London (photo 2) Photo Credit: Johnny Stephens Photography

Bacchanalia Photo Credit: Johnny Stephens Photography

Mosaic takes a more layered approach, with Tanqueray No. TEN gin and Casamigos Blanco meeting basil, apricot and warming spice in a tribute to the intricate patterns throughout the interiors, herbal, fruity and spiced notes coming together like tiles in a floor. Onyx, inspired by the depth of black stone, pairs Cîroc vodka with citrus, tamarind and aloe vera, and surprises by drinking crisp rather than heavy, a lovely twist on a material known for visual weight.

Emerald brings together Cygnet 22 Welsh Dry Gin, green apple, cucumber, fig leaf and Prosecco, a bright, bubbly study in green. Sapphire, meanwhile, pairs Johnnie Walker Black and Blue Label with peach, chinotto and bergamot, giving a whisky serve its own reading of a color usually reserved for jewelry boxes. And Verde, Amber and Iolite extend the color story to those skipping spirits.

Bacchanalia (photo 4) Photo Credit: Johnny Stephens Photography

A Menu You Read Like a Magazine

Even the menu plays a starring role. Palette arrives as a magazine, with photography, storytelling and design revealing the visual reference behind each drink. In a room with this much competing for your attention, it does something genuinely useful: it points your eye toward a particular surface, shade or detail, then tells you why it mattered to the people who created the recipe.

The collection is the result of months of collaboration, research, experimentation and refinement, using house-made ingredients, botanicals, fruit profiles and modern techniques. Xavier Landais, director of beverage at Caprice Holdings, describes it as a true team effort, with members contributing their own ideas and expertise, and the goal of helping guests discover the restaurant from a fresh perspective.

Apollo’s Muse gives that idea a second stage. The cocktail lounge places guests among ancient antiquities, extending Bacchanalia’s love of classical culture into a space made for drinks and conversation, and a reason to make cocktails the main event.

A spectacular interior makes an instant impression; a great menu invites you to slow down and look again. You might arrive dazzled by the sculptures and leave remembering one particular shade of marble, or find yourself studying a mosaic because of what’s in your glass. A room this extravagant can overwhelm the senses. A cocktail gives you one detail to focus on, and a very good excuse to keep looking.

Haute Living Verdict: London’s most extravagant room just got a menu to match. Start with the Rosso Levanto, then go find the marble that inspired it.