The two-martini rule isn’t a limit; it’s a rhythm — a cue for how the night should unfold. The word martini carries its own mythology: the hum of a dim bar, a haze of smoke and jazz, Andy Warhol’s Martini & Rossi vermouth ads, the shadow play of film noir. It keeps the evening suspended in that cinematic realm — poised, deliberate, slightly blurred at the edges.

Next time you batch drinks for the table, think of the effortlessly cool William Powell in The Thin Man, instructing as he makes a cocktail: “The important thing is the rhythm… a dry martini you always shake to waltz time.” 

With the first martini, we enter the evening. With the second, we belong to it.

Caveat: we recommend stirring your martini, not shaking it.

"There has never been a restaurant better keyed to the tempo of Manhattan than the Four Seasons, which opened recently at 99 East 52nd Street."

—Craig Claiborne, food editor and critic, New York Times, October 2, 1959

Shown above is the bar and dining room at The Grill, a New York institution. The original space (and the broader Four Seasons restaurant interiors in the Seagram Building) were designed by architect Philip Johnson, working within the Mies van der Rohe–designed building and in collaboration with restaurateur Joseph Bau. Inside, all the lines are disciplined—travertine, glass, bronze—but the effect is unexpectedly warm, almost fizzy, the way light catches on metal and glassware.