Red Sauce Aperitivo Has Arrived

Something’s up with aperitivo. Then again, since it first washed up on our shores, something has always been up with aperitivo. There was a time, in the 2010s, when the spritz and Negroni belonged to a tiny cottage industry of bars that proudly declared themselves “aperitivo.” Most, like Dante and Bar Pisellino in New York, or Americano in Portland, Oregon, remained relatively faithful to the classics, preferring to add their stamp in the light rejiggering of ingredients. The quest was to improve, rather than overhaul. As time went on, however, this gave way to a drip-drip of new concepts—aperitivo’s second wave—that did indeed seek to reimagine the genre as something uniquely American. Enter disco aperitivo, dive bar aperitivo and aperitiki. 

In 2020, when we last checked in on the spritz, the undisputed icon of aperitivo, it was not so much a fixed drink (though, of course, the Aperol Spritz was a reliable export), but an idea—bubbly, bitter, you fill in the rest. Its malleability invited ownership. While the spritz trundled along, unencumbered, picking up accolades (Hugo Spritz, drink of Summer 2023!) and rolling with the winds of change, the broader aperitivo 2.0 trend seemed to be in a return-to-sender moment. We were on to the next chew toy. 

Now, aperitivo has slowly emerged anew. In New York, Little Fino, Bad Roman, San Sabino, I Cavallini, Bar Bianchi. In LA, Capri Club. In Houston, Aperitivo. In Nashville, Four Walls. The 3.0 crop doesn’t seem to share all that much in common with its predecessors on glance, but look at the menus, and a thread emerges: a focus not so much on the classic canon, but instead on Italian ingredients or foods, and not just amari and aperitivo liqueurs, but calabrian chile, tomato, pannetone, tiramisu, and a desire to import those ideas into drink formats that are not explicitly Italian. 

So many of the drinks read, if I may, Italian-American. And by that I mean that there is a kind of familiar play at work. Strega Lemon Drops, frozen spritzes, 50/50 shots, caprese Martinis, Campari creamsicles, Italian carajillos. A new abundance has been attached to what has historically been a very pared-back, straight-ahead canon—sometimes flashy, sometimes subtle (Negroni Piccante!), but it’s there. We’re calling it the red sauce-ification of aperitivo.