Best place to pretend you're Ernest Hemingway writing Across the River and into the Trees
The best place, of course, would be Harry's Bar, or the bar of the Gritti Palace Hotel. But this is the
best of Boston, not the best of Venice, so you should head for Pignoli, where the atmosphere lacks only
the lapping of the Grand Canal outside. You may not look like Ernest, but no one will notice if you order
the Sassicaia grappa, based on one of the finest of the new Supertuscan reds - $20 a glass and worth every
penny. While you're at it, you can lose yourself in Hemingway's unbearably romantic 1950 novel (the title
refers to the last words spoken by Stonewall Jackson after he'd been accidentally shot by his own men at
Chancellorsville), about American colonel Richard Cantwell and Venetian countess Renata. (There should
have been a movie version with George C. Scott and Audrey Hepburn or Claudia Cardinale.) You might get the
same effect from the fine Badia a Coltibuono grappa (at just $10) or a Carpano Punt e Mes apéritif, but we
make no guarantees.
Pignoli, 91 Park Plaza, Boston, (617) 338-7500.
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