On Sept. 17, Martha Stewart’s favorite bartender, Matthew Biancaniello, will be popping up — for the first time since 2020 — at Evangeline Swamp Room in celebration of oyster season. Biancaniello will be serving alcoholic oysters and other on-theme cocktails to accompany a “222” Palette of Oysters prepared by Marcus Christiana-Beniger, chef/owner of Evangeline Swamp Room and the restaurant next door, Little Jewel of New Orleans.

One of Biancaniello’s oyster creations will feature Nikaido Shochu (a traditional Japanese distilled spirit), pieces of kalamata olive tapenade and lime-basil oil. Another one is dressed in Green Chartreuse, jalapeño relish and fried capers.

“It’s almost like a little meal,” said Biancaniello. “When I left The Roosevelt Hotel’s Library Bar in 2012, one of the first things I started doing was alcohol-infused events, like alcoholic ice cream. I was already more of a food person than a drink person.”

“Eat your Drink,” the title of Biancaniello’s first book, which was published in 2016, was an idea that his customers drummed up.

“The customers were saying: ‘This is like eating your drink. This is more like a meal,’” he explained. “It was really what they were mirroring back to me as opposed to me saying, this is who I am. That’s how my identity was shaped.”

Biancaniello is half Greek, half Italian. When he stumbled onto the Santa Monica farmers’ market, it reminded him of his grandparents’ garden, and when he started to focus on the drink game, “it felt like everything was fair game,” he said.

It was at his first bartending job at the Library Bar that he unexpectedly gained cocktail fame. Biancaniello had no idea what he was doing. His yoga pal offered him the job — because he needed one. On his first night, he had to duck down and ask the bartender next to him, “What’s in a cosmopolitan?”

“I didn’t know much about alcohol, but I did know ingredients, so I started going to the farmers’ market and replacing all of the things on the menu with fresh things,” he said.

About eight months in, he won a Chartreuse competition. In the finals, he remembers facing off against Matty Eggleston. When the last two drinks returned from the judges’ room, he saw that his was completely gone, and he thought just maybe he was the winner.

Within a year and a half, he was featured in the LA Times, The New York Times, Forbes, Playboy and CNN. In 2017, he launched a TV series, “Good Spirits,” on the FYI network.

“It became this culinary free for all taking everything I saw and trying it in a drink,” explained Biancaniello. “I didn’t think about right or wrong. It wasn’t about whether I thought this was going to be good or not, whether this was supposed to happen or not. It was me wanting to try it and see what happened. Everything I was doing, it was produce driven.”

A great bartender once told Biancaniello that alcohol is like the protein of the meal. The lime, sugar, herbs and fruits, that’s like sizzling the onions, garlic and olive oil.

“What’s great is that I put so much into the sautéing part of it,” he said.

Even Martha Stewart raved about Biancaniello’s cocktail skills, calling him her favorite bartender. Just before COVID, they both attended ChefDance at Sundance.

“The first two drinks, she didn’t like them,” he recalled. “I gave her something with garlic and something smoky. She said, ‘I don’t like garlic, and I don’t like smoke.’ I said, ‘Tell me what you like,’ and I made her a drink. She goes, ‘That’s the best drink I ever had in my life,’ and then I made her a second one. She said, ‘This is absolutely incredible.’ Those were with guavas and rhubarb and citrus, and that was something she could relate to because she grew them on her farm. She was impressed, and it was great because when you have somebody who’s well known but also critical, it’s a big deal.”

To have come this far on the back of food and alcohol is pretty ironic for Biancaniello. His mom was an alcoholic, and when he was younger, he had an eating disorder. He wasn’t comfortable around food. When the opportunity to bartend came along, he began to explore his culinary interest through alcohol. About a year and a half after he began bartending, he had a realization.

“People were taking pictures of my drinks,” he relayed. “There was this one woman, she was savoring everything. I could see her excitement. I stopped and said to myself: I know what I’ve been doing now. I have been rescripting my relationship to alcohol and making it beautiful and something that I savor.”

On Sept. 17 from 6 to 9 p.m., Chef Marcus will be offering a “222” Palette of Oysters ($36) consisting of: two baked Sanctuary Oysters Rockefeller in a Pernod bath, two Chef M’s Derby port-wine-drenched charbroiled oysters with prosciutto and BBQ shrimp topping and two fried Washington Oyster Angels on Horseback with Cajun Lightning Remoulade.

Also on the menu are the Oyster Experience ($55) and the Premium Tasting Ticket ($75) that includes the complete oyster progression plus one full cocktail.

“This collaboration with Biancaniello feels like the culmination of a very organic progression of events for us,” said Eunah Kang Beniger, wife and business partner of Chef Marcus. “It’s CA farm to glass meets oysters, meets LA in LA.”

The evening will be first come, first served with no reservations, and early attendance is recommended as seating is limited. The Evangeline Swamp Room is located at 701 North Spring Street, Los Angeles. Learn more by calling 213-620-0461.