An Exploration of the Archive & Myth Menu

The Archive & Myth menu began as an act of looking backwards.

Not out of nostalgia, but out of respect. Classic cocktail menus once lived comfortably in bistros, hotel bars, and dining rooms. They weren’t declarations or performances. They were practical, handsome documents. You ordered from them without ceremony. A Martini. A Manhattan. A Flip. Drinks that felt as though they had always been there.

There is something quietly confident about those menus. The Savoy Cocktail Book is the obvious reference point, but more broadly it’s the idea of a menu that doesn’t explain itself. It assumes a level of trust between bar and guest. We wanted to revive that feeling and bring it into a modern context.

The Archive & Myth menu isn’t trying to rewrite anything. It’s an attempt to present classic cocktail thinking with contemporary precision. Familiar forms, properly made, expressed with restraint. The romance is in the confidence, not the decoration.

One of the things those older menus did well was pacing. Drinks arrived with a natural rhythm. You might begin with something brisk, move through something richer, and finish with a small moment of indulgence. That thinking informed our decision to introduce Minor and Major serves. Smaller drinks encourage curiosity and movement. Larger ones invite you to linger. Together, they let the guest shape the evening in the same unspoken way those old menus once did.

Alcohol-free drinks sit alongside the rest of the menu, not apart from it. They are written with the same language and care. In the same way that classic menus never made a distinction between who “should” be drinking what, we wanted choice to feel normal and unremarkable.

The physicality of the menu matters. Paper. Texture. Handwritten checks. Cocktail cards that feel like something you might find tucked into a book later. These details echo the printed matter of another era — programmes, invitations, small objects that carried memory rather than instruction.

The design and brand world of Archive & Myth was created entirely by Jack Hawkins, drawing heavily from the Hippodrome’s own archive. Old show programmes and invitations helped shape the typography, layout, and tone. The result is a menu that feels embedded in its surroundings, as if it could have existed here in another time.

There are moments of indulgence, but they are used sparingly. A pousse-café. A final Ammazzacaffè. Small gestures that nod to tradition rather than reinvent it. In older bars, these moments arrived quietly, almost as a favour. We liked that.

This menu isn’t interested in trends or constant reinvention. Like the best classic menus, it’s meant to age gently. To feel familiar on the first visit and more understood on the third.

If it reads like something you might find in the back of a well-used cocktail book, slightly worn at the edges, then it’s probably doing its job.