At the Malkovich Secret Bar in Genoa, an immersive experience of synesthesia between mixology and seventh art. The 2025 drink list is a liquid script: cinema, illustrations, music and flavors intertwine in a speakeasy ritual.
The cocktail bar and staff
The sun has set, and on this street in downtown Genoa so bustling during the day, there is a certain silence at this hour.
If you listen, you can hear the sound of your own footsteps. If you look, in any direction your eyes meet magnificent palaces of the Rolli, in which noble families visiting the doge of the Genoese Republic found lodging a few centuries ago. But you are not in the 17th century, and what was then called Strada Nuova and is now Via Garibaldi shows itself illuminated by electric light, admittedly rather scenic. You walk down it all the way to the small pedestrian square. Then you turn left. You continue for a few dozen meters. You turn right. On the side of a seventeenth-century building freshly renovated, you see the symbol of an unmistakable American actor, perhaps the only one to boast a film with his own name in the title: Malkovich. Are you at your destination? Yet the sign you see on the door is that of a (very fine) hamburger shop. You walk in, say the right phrase (it's not “Fidelio”), you are led into the meanderings of the “minus one and a half” floor, and the gateway is not only spatial, but also temporal: the atmosphere, all of a sudden, is that of the speakeasies of the U.S. Prohibition years.
If you're not a tourist, truth be told, it's rare that it happens exactly that way, because where the Malkovich secret bar is in Genoa is informally known by a bit of the nightlife crowd. Since 2015, this charming bar made up of pertugi, small rooms and stairways, dim lights, retro furniture and bartenders with grace, dexterity and vests has been the benchmark for those in town who love good drinks, good ideas and good stories. Giorgio Carnevali is its charismatic master of ceremonies, an artist of mixology but also a great storyteller, author of stories, illustrations and poems that have populated the bar's cocktail lists over the years. For the past few years he has been joined by young Simone Savio, gifted with a creativity that oscillates in unpredictable ways between the brash and the scientific.
The Experience
At “Malko,” the year's list is never just a list of the cocktails of the moment, but is each time a different concept that takes off from the imagery of the seventh art and unravels between the pages to become liquid. I sit down, pick up the 2025 drink list and read the title: Synesthesia, “a term habitually used to designate the sensory/perceptual phenomenon that is produced as a result of a contamination of the senses of perception.”
If cinema, which has always been the bar's inspiration, is indeed a synaesthetic art form, the team at Malkovich wants to explore this concept by mixing&matching visual and musical arts with cinematic suggestions.
As a director would do, the experience of taste is orchestrated here along with multiple sensory stimuli, resulting in what Carnevali calls 'a synaptic rave.' I keep flipping through the list and already know I will ask if I can take it home. On each page, illustration and mixology meet in an interplay of mutual suggestions starting with a cinematic theme.
Each left side displays original artwork inspired by a film, created by a different illustrator or illustrator, thanks to the valuable collaboration with the Genoese art collective Pepita Ramone.
On each right side, a cocktail inspired by the same film takes shape on paper with concepts, sketches and notes handcrafted by Carnevali, almost like a storyboard.
And then, live, the narrative is completed with evocative storytelling from the bartenders and, in some cases, props.
My journey at the table
The first drink I taste is, not surprisingly, the bestseller of the season: it is the seductive Eyes wide shut. It arrives at the table accompanied by a mask and the whisper “in case of a party.” It is presented as a bright red goblet topped with a soft meringue that has just been flambéed. The visual effect has something sexy about it, or perhaps it is the suggestion given by Viviana Giovannini's illustration of it on the list. The idea is that the drinker will find himself squinting his lips several times, accompanying the texture of the foam.
It tastes just the right amount of pimply thanks to red fruits, cocoa, and a hint of Aleppo chile, made more intriguing and penetrating by the tobacco note of black cardamom, almost suggesting the incense of the ritual enacted by Kubrick. Fade to black, and I find myself at the Grand Budapest Hotel. This drink, like others on the list, is designed according to a zero-waste philosophy, a principle the bar embraces through garnishes and sides made from drink scraps. But sustainability is not the only goal; there is a careful search for character.
It would have been easy to come up with a pink, candy-coated, baroque drink, like the world set in Wes Anderson's films. Instead, a different path was chosen. Inspiration comes from the geography and pivotal flavors of Central European cuisine: the spices - paprika, coriander and cumin - and the fermented cabbage of sauerkraut, acidified, made into a cordial or served as an accompaniment.
The same ingredient base is treated in 3 different styles: fizz, daiquiri and old fashioned, as in an elevator ride from economy to suite. I sampled “Imperial Suite,” the most brooding of the three: decidedly gastronomic, you could almost call it a platter. It clamors for an accompanying bite, which arrives on time in the form of crispy cabbage. Color and presentation remain deliberately understated: the effect sought is that of a hotel drink.
I turn around and see a cloud coming, fluttering over the tray on its way to the table, to land suspended over the drink on which it will slowly drip-unless it is gulped down in one gulp. Enchanted City, which takes the form of a wide bowl of green tea, is a work on the fantastical and somewhat dreamlike suggestions of famed Japanese author Hayao Miyazaki and the umami that evokes its geographical provenance. Mushroom and aged sake go to mix with a reposado Espolon tequila, dance with the sweetly woody flavor of a matcha syrup, and surprise with sudden, almost citric notes of Sichuan pepper.
Behind the scenic presentation, there is also technological work on novel textures, here achieved with a custom-made contraption and the invisible contribution of helium. With the next two drinks, synesthesia takes a further leap: the perceptual experience is expanded by introducing another art (music), another artist (a composer) and another sense (hearing). The glasses are delivered, in fact, with two small mp3 players, those were used not so many years ago, yet they already taste vintage. Through the sip of Apocalypse Now and the accompanying music track custom-composed by Luca Fiorato, one is plunged into a humid jungle thick with danger as one travels along the winding riverbed of the Mekong before reaching Colonel Kurtz's mystical oasis.
In the military green metallic cup, the vegetable dominates in flavor and color, with mezcal, avocado, moringa, lime, and prune liqueur. Thanks to the cachaça's contribution, “the descriptor here is fresh olive” , I rightly hear the table sentence. Redemption comes with a warm, gingerbread-spiced shot, to be drunk “when the time feels right.” My favorite. Ichange tracks to the Twin Peaks and find myself in the not-so-cheery Washington state location. In my headphones, instead of Badalamenti's iconic melody, a track custom composed by Tamborder, a DJ producer from Rome transports me to the claustrophobic imagery of the series not only with the melody, but also some sampled sounds, local birds for example. I look at Cristiano Baricelli's artwork with a Bob popping up small in the shadows: the goal of disturbing me is achieved. I temper by dipping my lips into the comfortable foam of the glass, which is offered like a coffee cup, enveloping and mysterious like the fog advancing through the streets.
The rest of the drink is a combination of Jameson Black Barrel whiskey, Campari bitters, Noilly Prat dry vermouth, Drambuie, Raspberries, and soy-hazelnut sauce. By the end of the evening, the conceptual and sensory suggestions and stimuli mingle gently in my head and body. It will take me a walk. The Malkovich Secret Bar is an atmospheric bar in Genoa's historic center inspired by the legendary speakeasies of American Prohibition. Open since 2015, it is a place where cinema and cocktails sneak together and whisper their stories.
All photos are by Ilaria Murtas©.
Contact
Malkovich secret bar
Via ai Quattro Canti di S. Francesco, 34r, 16124 Genova GE
Phone 393 011 0393
Opening hours: Wednesdays, Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays 21:00-01:00
Friday, Saturday 21:00-03:00
Tuesday closed
