{"id":42732,"date":"2025-11-07T17:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/42732\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T17:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T17:28:14","slug":"you-will-love-this-negroni-that-tastes-like-spaghetti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/42732\/","title":{"rendered":"You will love this Negroni that tastes like spaghetti"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Swig City<\/a>, where we point you toward can\u2019t-miss drinks at the best bars, taprooms, and kitschy Italian joints in the Bay Area. Cheers!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s official: The most savory, aromatic, don\u2019t-miss cocktail of the fall is the spaghetti Negroni at Emmy\u2019s Spaghetti Shack (opens in new tab)<\/a>. Yes, a spaghetti Negroni \u2014 more proof that there are no hard-and-fast rules to this stiffest of aperitifs.<\/p>\n

Served over ice and garnished with a sprig of rosemary, the drink is playful and assertive with a touch of sweetness. It\u2019s also one of the booziest cocktails around, comprising gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth \u2014 nothing but alcohol, essentially. It\u2019s the centerpiece of a new menu of four offbeat Negronis at San Francisco\u2019s kitschiest rock \u2019n\u2019 roll Italian restaurant, which toys with the classics like nowhere else.<\/p>\n

\"FourThe Negroni menu features four riffs on the classic. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

Given Emmy\u2019s hearty menu of fettuccine Alfredo and five-layer \u201cCadillac\u201d lasagna, owner Michael Irish saw a certain logic in priming diners\u2019 palates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So he played around. After a friend introduced him to a \u201cpizza spritz,\u201d an effervescent, low-alcohol drink with notes of tomato and oregano, he had a template.<\/p>\n

Irish took tomato gin \u2014 yes, such a thing exists (opens in new tab)<\/a> \u2014 and tomato vermouth, and combined them with a basil eau de vie and herbs, topping it all off with a splash of Lambrusco. The finished product is a curveball best enjoyed with a salty appetizer, like Emmy\u2019s rosemary-and-hot-honey prosciutto zeppole. The kitchen beefed up the food menu with a couple of classic dishes just for this purpose. \u201cOur new eggplant parm with this spaghetti Negroni is really good,\u201d Irish says. \u201cThere\u2019s just something about fried food and really cold sugar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ATomato gin, tomato vermouth, and basil eau de vie star in the spaghetti Negroni. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

Not everything on the new Negroni menu drinks like a dare, though. There\u2019s a classic one, made with Mediterranean gin and topped with a thick limoncello foam. And Emmy\u2019s is set to unveil more Negronis in the coming months, including a Parmesan version made by steeping cheese rinds in gin for 15 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To Irish, the important thing is the ratio. If you\u2019re making cocktails at home, balance is important, but in a restaurant, the opposite applies. \u201cI like imbalance between ingredients,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more compelling. It\u2019s hard to put your finger on.\u201d<\/p>\n

A staff favorite is the Negroni frapp\u00e9 \u2014 a slushie, in other words, prepared with the standard gin and sweet vermouth, plus Amaro Meletti, orange juice, Cr\u00e8me de Noyaux, and a grilled orange garnish. A bit of kitchen chemistry is involved, as Irish turned the noyaux (an amaretto-esque liqueur distilled from cherry pits) into a fire-engine-red gel that\u2019s swirled around the inside of the glass, barber-pole-style.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThe Negroni frapp\u00e9, made with Amaro Meletti, orange juice, Cr\u00e8me de Noyaux, and a grilled orange garnish. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

Customers\u2019 familiarity with the Negroni is what allows Emmy\u2019s to experiment and get weird, Irish says, adding that the gel delivers a jolt of flavor, color, and texture, the way chamoy bumps up a margarita. \u201cI\u2019m keeping it Italian-ish with the amaretto flavor,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I just love a swirl.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to Swig City, where we point you toward can\u2019t-miss drinks at the best bars, taprooms, and kitschy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[8697,14839,416,101,103,102,104,106,105,8696],"class_list":{"0":"post-42732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-bars","9":"tag-bernal-heights","10":"tag-cocktails","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-swig-city"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}