The construction boards had not even come down yet around Montana, but the minute Lorenzo Antinori, of Bar Leone fame, popped his head around the plywood and motioned us into the black-and-white tiled interiors accented with dark wood and ox-blood red, a little zing of electric funky energy was already running through our veins.
Bar Leone has just been crowned top slot in Asia’s 50 Best Bars for the second year in a row, but Antinori already has his sights set on this new venture with Simone Caporale, co-founder of the acclaimed Sips in Barcelona. The pair met in 2012 while working for different bars in London, and bonded over late-night drinks and a shared vision: that bars should be fun, candid, and alive.
Montana leans into this perspective, taking inspiration from the golden age of Cuba, where the pours were long, the beats fluid, and the atmosphere alive. Interestingly, the interiors itself are more of a nod to the Miami dive bar, reminiscent of iconic venues like Mac’s Club Deuce on South Beach. Miami in the 1970s saw a lot of Cuban migrants who brought their culture and music to America’s shores, and Montana is a love letter to that hedonistic era of rum-soaked, neon-drenched, disco nights.
We started with the Montana Daiquiri, a concoction of Havana rum, raspberry eau de vie, and lime, served in a flower-shaped glass with a maraschino cherry. Light, fruity, and the perfect opener to the evening, this drink follows the original recipe found in the 1930s manual of the Club de los Cantineros, Cuba’s legendary bartenders’ association. The menu of nine cocktails gets progressively stronger the further you move down the list, but you can’t go wrong with their signatures marked with a star. Hotel Nacional features rum, apricot brandy, lime, sour pineapple, and absinthe – it’s tangy and palatable, but might well put you under the table if you have three or more.
Speaking of pineapples, Montana has an oven perched behind the bar, where they roast their own rotisserie chickens or seasonal pineapples. It’s well worth asking about their piña of the month snack: rum-marinated pineapple slowroasted with house seasoning and served with a shot of frozen coconut rum. Other bar bites worth mentioning are the chips generously topped with prosciutto, pickled chillis, mascarpone, and Bar Leone’s famous smoked olives; the pan con tomate focaccia with tomatoes, Cantabrian anchovies, and salsa verde; and the spicy corn ribs. We’ve already marked the Doritos veal tonnato to try next time – it sounds like a crispy version of vitello tonnato, so basically mouthwatering.
Our favourite among the cocktails so far is the Café Havana, their twist on an espresso martini, made with Beefeater gin, cold-brew coffee, sherry, salted honey, and banana cream. The mouthfeel is immediately smooth, with a rounded taste that lingers on the palate. It’s also slightly savoury – a plus in our books – and the banana cream is so beautiful that if we could make off with a tubful of it and get away with it, we probably would.
What’s also very interesting is that Montana serves an El Presidente, a classic Cuban cocktail that is rarely found in Hong Kong’s bars. Featuring rum, fig leaf bourbon, chinotto, quince vermouth, and bitters, it is ‘aged’ in a bottle coated with dulce de leche, which imparts a smooth sweetness of cacao butter to balance this typically spirit-forward drink.
The upstairs seating area of Montana is a little more upscale than the fun rowdiness of the bar below, offering lounge seating in an intimate space bearing shades of dark green, burnt sienna, and images of musical icons. Tunes are a big part of the bar’s Cuban vibe, and their playlist is full of throwback hits, Latin funk, and moving beats where the likes of Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, Abba, and Selena all share the limelight. There’s also a piano upstairs, and the plan is to host live music nights to keep us all grooving into the wee hours.
Antinori has taken the laid-back, unpretentious vibe of Bar Leone (as well as some of his friendly staff) and transplanted it within the halcyon days of Cuban pleasure-seeking in its prime. With every spirited shout of ‘Ritmo!’ – ‘rhythm’ in Spanish – when newcomers enter the bar, customers are transported back to a sunny, hedonistic, electrifying time, with the drinks to match. If you’re a fan of jazz, Latino beats, salsa and disco, vintage moments, not taking yourself too seriously, and a perfectly shaken daiquiri, then Montana will be waiting for you.
Visit Montana at 108 Hollywood Road, Central.
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