A three-story tower of gin bottles—more than 1,000 expressions—framed by carved wooden columns is the centerpiece of the extravagant Art Deco room that is home to Atlas Bar. With that kind of collection, naturally, the Martini gets special attention.

“They use Ambrato vermouth, which is a little different,” says Simon Ford, founder of Fords Gin. “But the thing that makes it pop is the Champagne vinegar they use in it—it livens it up.” Orange bitters round out the house formula. If that’s still not special enough, Atlas also offers a selection of vintage gins spanning the 20th century.

At The Connaught, it’s all about the Martini cart (or trolley, in English parlance) wheeled tableside by a white-gloved bartender. If you’re lucky, Agostino Perrone, director of mixology, will be the one steering the famed trolley.

“If you’re sitting there and Ago Perrone wheels up that cart, and he does the stir with the ridiculously long pour, and there’s no bubbles from however high up he pours—it’s a master at work,” says Joaquín Simó, proprietor of New York’s Pouring Ribbons, describing the “sheer theatricality” of the house serve. “It’s their show pony,” notes Simó, but the drink—a blend of Tanqueray No. 10 gin, a proprietary blend of vermouth and housemade bitters—would be remarkable even without the performance.

What’s a Martini list without a Steakhouse Martini? At Keens, more than 100 Martinis are sold each day in V-shaped glasses, in one of New York’s last remaining 19th-century chophouses where thousands of clay pipes hang from the ceiling.

Here, the drink is “as classic as they come,” says Matt Chavez, bar manager of Ci Siamo in New York. Whether guests select vodka or gin, or call by brand, what arrives is a drink that’s “big, dry and cold,” Chavez says. “I always expect them to be haphazardly prepared, but they are always extremely satisfying and very cold (can’t emphasize temperature enough).”

Just steps from the Grand Canal, Harry’s Bar was founded by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1931. Here, the Martinis are delivered not in V-shaped glasses but in frosty shot glasses emblazoned with the bar’s logo, pulled straight from the refrigerator. 

“The drink’s appearance always startles newcomers,” writes author and Punch contributor Robert Simonson in his book The Martini Cocktail. “The small glasses were originally employed because Harry’s was determined from the very first to deliver cocktails as cold as possible—not an easy feat in the 1930s and 1940s. Thus, small glassware, which kept the drink colder longer.”

One of the most elaborately presented Martinis in New York, the Old King Cole is prepared tableside: One bartender makes the drink while a second holds the silver tray with all the trappings. It’s a meticulously calculated formula, made with saffron-tinged Old Raj gin, Mancino Secco vermouth and orange bitters. A selection of garnishes—Castelvetrano olives on a sleek cocktail pick, a manicured lemon twist and seaweed—is presented in a small bowl of crushed ice. It’s a big production, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. “They nail it,” affirms Lucinda Sterling, managing partner of Brooklyn bar Seaborne.

Barcelona’s oldest cocktail bar is notable for its Art Deco surroundings and thrown Martinis, in which the drink is poured back and forth between two shaker tins at a height that increases with each pour, a technique that founder Miguel Boadas first learned at El Floridita in Havana.

 “It’s a dance,” explains Jena Ellenwood, cocktail educator for Dear Irving and Raines Law Room. “Sitting at the bar there is like watching theater or ballet—the white coat–wearing bartenders artfully throw ribbons of cocktails back and forth without missing a beat.” The result is an expertly chilled, aerated, silky Martini, made with London dry gin, just enough extra-dry vermouth to rinse the mixing glass, and perhaps a quick spritz of bergamot “perfume” to finish. Olives are the preferred garnish, Ellenwood notes: “Olives in Spain, amiright?!”

Although six-year-old Wildhawk doesn’t have the historical pedigree of a Dukes or a Keens, its House Martini has attracted the attention of bar pros well beyond the Bay Area.

“When someone says ‘classic cocktail,’ I envision a perfectly chilled, expertly made Martini in a highly curated room,” says Keli Rivers, Sipsmith brand ambassador and former “ginoisseur” at San Francisco’s gin palace, Whitechapel. “Wildhawk is the living embodiment of this daydream.”

Wildhawk bar manager Christian Suzuki explains what makes the drink special: It’s a 5-to-1 ratio of gin or vodka (at present, guests have a choice of nine gins and two vodkas) to vermouth (the latter either Noilly Prat or Dolin Dry), kept in the freezer. “We serve these Martinis in a Japanese tokkuri—or sake carafe—that has also been in the freezer, to keep the Martini nice and cold,” says Suzuki. “Since they are made from clay, the Martini stays insulated for a slightly longer period of time. Guests will then pour from the tokkuri into their Martini glass.” The finishing touch: a choice of a lemon twist, olive or onion garnish.

Is it the iconic room, frozen in midcentury Hollywood splendor? The red-jacketed bartenders? The specters of all the celebrities who have rubbed elbows along the long mahogany bar since 1919? Is it the Gilbey’s gin, the bar’s house brand, once well-known but rarely seen today, or the Spanish olives cured in-house?

Most likely, it’s all of the above, plus the signature presentation: a petite two-and-a-half ounce V-shaped glass, plus a carafe stashed in a bucket of crushed ice for plentiful top-ups.