Joel Chirinos rules here, three-time champion of World Class Peru (2014, 2016, and 2025) and the first Peruvian bartender to win that competition three times. His menu does not illustrate the 70s and 80s of New York: he translates them into technique and is inspired by music. Each drink is conceived as a sound piece, and that metaphor, which might sound like a marketing exercise, holds up in the glass here.
The Reverb is the clearest example: bourbon, Lapsang Souchong (a Chinese black tea smoked over pine fire), and Cherry Heering (a Danish cherry liqueur, dense and with more body and less sweetness than usual) build that vinyl crackle the name promises, with toasted notes and a final bitterness that avoids the typical mistake when reimagining an ‘old fashioned’, which is to end up too sweet. The Bassline, my favorite, does something riskier: a rooibos infusion provides the smoky background, a passion fruit reduction with spices adds acidity, and Alipus mezcal brings the heavy weight. For the foam, instead of egg white, they use Halo, a natural sparkling made from quillay saponins — a novelty in mixology that avoids any egg-related issues, from salmonella to allergies —.
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The Pink Noise: vodka, strawberries with roses, Luxardo Maraschino, and Carpano Dry create, in the background, a more serious cosmopolitan that Chirinos calls “a calm melody.” The Mixtape (pisco, black currants, passion fruit) and the Frequency (gin, Campari, camu camu, and Fever-Tree tonic, served in a copper glass) close the menu for those who prefer to experiment with pisco or gin, in refreshing formats.
Behind all this is the Low ABV (alcohol by volume) trend, which Chirinos does not sell as a trend but as a criterion: less alcohol per glass does not mean drinking less, it means being able to try more without the night ending in a hangover. It is a timely reading of the moment that Lima’s mixology is living, where excess began to be seen as a lack of skill rather than generosity. And in a city that still confuses drinking a lot with having a good time, that criterion says more about Velvet than any vinyl or elevator.
Velvet does not invent 80s nostalgia or the ‘speakeasy’. What makes it different is that here aesthetics is not an excuse to serve anything in a pretty glass. Joel Chirinos’s bar does not stop at the drink: it synchronizes the menu, the snacks, and even the vinyl playing that night.//
From left to right: Analog, a spicy, dry cocktail with toasted aromas. Frequency, a bitter and citrus cocktail. And Mixtape, a pisco ‘long drink’ with passion fruit and black currants.
INFO
Address: Begonias 215, San Isidro
952 354 274 @barvelvetlima
The snacks
Chef Víctor Álvarez designed a snack menu for Velvet that does not seek protagonism: these are dishes to share without thinking too much, ideal for after work. There are Soho tacos, with corn tortilla, pulled pork, pickles, and smoked golf sauce; food truck bites: small sandwiches in naan bread filled with brisket with pickled cabbage, radish, and garlic sauce; and prawn and pork dumplings with ponzu sauce.
Vinyl nights
The Atmosphere Sound System literally supports the concept of ‘sound bar’: marked bass, good definition, volume designed for conversation without shouting. Thursdays are DJ Juan Ma’s turn and Fridays feature Matías Passucci, but the novelty comes on Wednesdays, when the bar opens the booth to anyone who wants to bring their own vinyl and listen to them with maximum definition.
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