Visitors to Seamark Restaurant, at the Encore Boston Harbor, can now experience an additional drinking experience via Old Wives’ Tale, a 16-seat speakeasy that has been designed to channel the spirit of exploration and adventure inherent in seafaring voyages of yore. “The central goal was to offer a departure from the usual mundane experience, providing patrons with a more intimate, immersive, and transportive ambience,” says Francesco Lafranconi, the concept’s founder, and senior vice president of beverage and hospitality culture for Carver Road Hospitality.
The “speakeasy,” Lafranconi says, is a passage back in time, a way to thematically link the city of Boston with its historical roots in the sea trade. “We created the story around the Royal Mariner, a majestic four-mast vessel that sailed off from Plymouth, England, where the Mayflower sailed off from in 1620, with America’s first pilgrims,” he says. The intimate lounge space, featuring mahogany wood furniture, red carpeting, dark leather chairs set on metal frames, a back bar fashioned from an open steamer trunk, and deep-purple velvet banquettes, offers a luxurious and inviting setting with an air of intrigue.
Lafranconi’s background informs his current project. The winner of some of the world’s most prestigious cocktail competitions, including the Bacardi-Martini Grand Prix World Final and John White Course in Singapore; the Bartender Hall of Fame Award from Bartender magazine; and the Raising the Bar Award from Cheers magazine among others, he has worked at some of the world’s leading hotel bars, like The Gleneagles in Scotland, The Palace Hotel in Gstaadt, Switzerland, The Intercontinental Hotel in Cologne, Germany, and Harry’s Bar and Hotel Cipriani in Venice, Italy.
But it was his previous concept, Mr. Coco, inside Las Vegas’ Palms Resort, that offered Lafranconi the vision and confidence to deliver Old Wives’ Tale, he says. That venue is now closed, but the idea of the speakeasy—a distinctive and specific type of cocktail bar that is noted, Lafranconi says, for its ambiance and exclusivity—lives on in Old Wives’ Tale.
“What sets a speakeasy apart from other cocktail bars includes its historical inspiration from the Prohibition Era,” he says. A speakeasy is discreet. A speakeasy is subtle. In developing the concept for Old Wives’ Tale, Lafranconi and the executive team visited some of the country’s most sought-after speakeasies, determining that theme was paramount in providing a space that would really shine. “We wanted our theme to be very unique and unusual,” he says. “We wanted to deliver a strong sense of identity and attention to details in a very limited, confined space.”
The result is a 465-square-foot space that emphasizes the artistry of the cocktail. The bar station, Lafranconi says, “is set up like a piano,” and the mixologist is “like the piano player,” at the center of the action. Guests of Old Wives’ Tale are framed as the audience, with a view from every angle of the room. The bar itself has no stools, preventing any obstruction. It’s a commitment, Lafranconi says, “to providing an exceptional and memorable experience for patrons,” and the feeling of walking in is comparable to entering an admiral’s cabin aboard a vintage vessel.
Lafranconi is responsible for the creation of the menu’s 11 drinks, all inspired, he says, by the 11 ports-of-call that ran along the Royal Mariner’s route from Plymouth to Boston Harbor. “Throughout the voyage, the travelers visited countries renowned for their national distilled spirits, such as Pisco, from Peru; Cachaça, from Brazil; and Shochu, from Japan,” he says. “They also encountered a variety of food ingredients, including Indian mango chutney, cardamom, and saffron; British lemon custard and sloe berries; vermouth, olives and dried tomatoes from Italy; and an array of spices and flavors from distant lands.” These ingredients now inflect the menu’s ambitious and worldly cocktails. Drinks are served in distinctive glassware, for what Lafranconi refers to as “an engaging sensory experience.”
Chef Michael Schlow and his team de cuisine have also developed a slim accompanying food menu for the space, featuring items like spiced Marcona almonds, marinated olives, Togarashi-flavored chips, tuna tartare, spicy lobster bao buns, and white sturgeon caviar with the traditional accoutrements. The menu, Lafranconi says, is meant to complement the drink list without overpowering the space with overly pungent olfactory notes.
It’s a journey to a faraway place, and one that guests can take without having to travel too far afield.