Hidden near Piazza Volta, this intimate Hemingway-inspired bar combines serious mixology, literary storytelling, and one of Como’s most atmospheric settings for an exceptional cocktail.
Hidden down a small lane in Como’s historic center, just off Piazza Volta, Hemingway Cocktail Bar feels like a discovery, even though it has become one of the city’s most established destinations for serious cocktails.
The bar is the creation of veteran mixologist Omar Vesentini, who revived one of Como’s cocktail-bar icons and transformed it into a deeply atmospheric homage to Ernest Hemingway. Dark woods, warm lighting, vintage photographs, exotic objects, and colonial influences evoke the places and eras associated with the legendary writer without turning the room into a theme bar.
The real reason to come, however, is what happens behind the bar.
Vesentini and his team approach cocktails through storytelling. The menu changes each year and draws inspiration from Hemingway’s life, travels, and novels, interpreting classic cocktails through contemporary ingredients and technique. The connection isn’t superficial: the story behind each drink is intended to be part of the experience.
That commitment to mixology has earned Hemingway considerable recognition. The bar won the 2024 Como Lake Cocktail Week and was included in the 2026 Identità Golose guide to Italy’s noteworthy cocktail bars, with Vesentini recognized as Bar Manager.
Despite those credentials, Hemingway remains intimate and refreshingly unpretentious. There are only a limited number of seats inside, including the coveted stools directly at the bar. During warmer months, the experience expands outside toward Piazza Volta, where a seasonal second bar and outdoor seating create a livelier counterpart to the cocoon-like interior.
It is sophisticated without feeling precious. The kind of place where one cocktail can very easily become two.
