Every time I visit my parent’s house in Lebanon, I go through some of their old photos to see if I could find anything interesting to share. This trip I found the photo above, it’s a photo of my parents with some of their friends having dinner at Riccardo in the Sheraton Hotel sometime back in the 70s.
Since this was taken in the 70s, it was after alcohol was banned, but, there seems to be a 375ml Hennessy Cognac bottle on the table. I guess it was a BYOB affair?
You can see a higher resolution of the photo by clicking [Here]
23 replies on “Dinner at Riccardo in the 70s”
Could have still be legal at the time. Alcohol was banned in 1978.
so that’s the thing, I’ve also heard that alcohol was banned in 78 but most articles I’ve found say that it was in fact banned in 65
https://248am.com/mark/interesting/oil-oil-everywhere-but-not-a-drop-to-drink/
https://248am.com/mark/80s-90s/bootleggers-boom/
Interesting! Sometimes I wish there was better access to historic texts and actual events that occurred in Kuwait.
tell me about it, you can’t imagine how annoying it is for me to google something and end up at my blog!
COGNAC!!!! Beautiful, oh god I can literally taste it. I prefer remy Martin to Hennessy but they are both incredible. Mark your parents have good taste.
I’m guessing it was cognac, I just zoomed into the picture and after a bit of googling realizing the closest thing the bottle looks like is the short hennessy cognac bottle https://248am.com//images/2018/06/hennessy-1.jpg
No the bottle is different so is the label design however the logo is the same. You can clearly see the wood man’s hand with an axe. In the 70s and 80s people tried to modernise everything so they changed the design but after 2010 people started appreciating the old so the current bottle designs are closer to the originals back when luxury alcohols first came out. But Hennessy costs a pretty penny, the starting price of a bottle of Hennessy is much higher than remy Martin but when it comes to higher quality pieces like XO ageing then they cost the same (except novelty pieces).
keep in mind the bottle shot i have now is current and the one in the original photo was back in the 70s. so the bottle and label are nearly identical (check out the border design on both bottles) but the typography is a bit different.
They are but the 70s is squarer which was fashionable in the 70s while before that people preferred rounded edges. What do u prefer drinking.., when not in Kuwait?
Bourbon and Whisky are my go to drinks but I love beer as well and proseco, yum. This past weekend my go to drink was a delicious smoked rosemary whisky sour.
I don’t mind whisky but I prefer liquor and cognac.
Dark shades indoors, 2 violinists and a cellist seemingly playing for just one table, the whole setting has a very mafioso dinner vibe going on.
Its very riviera-esque… dinner and then a walk along the promenade..discussing the catch of the day and the crime of the night.. right before boarding the yacht and cruising along the Mediterranean..
This picture would make an awesome album cover
Truly another time. I think I have a picture of my mother at that same restaurant circa 1979.
Thank God – no apostrophe in the “70s”
Actually, writing it as ’70s with the apostrophe in front would be correct.
A man of specific pleasures
Aren’t we all?
I second that.
I wish to know how the life for expats was back then… it looks very relaxed and not the “manhunt” feeling we have nowadays.
Opens the floodgates of memories of the good ol’ times in Q8. Sorely miss the Hunt Room at the Sheraton, the bar at the Hunting & Equestrian club (from before the prohibition) and the Gazelle Club.
The best part is everywhere you went, people would know each other and thats a great feeling to have.
Apparently Riccardo still looks the same today