Cosmopolitan means citizen of the cosmos, of the whole world. It is also, of course, a very famous cocktail.
Kosmopol is a Chelsea bar with two hundred and seventy-four reviews and a 4.3, and its name is a stylised spin on “cosmopolitan” – a word with a serious philosophical pedigree and a very famous cocktail attached.
Citizen of the world
“Cosmopolitan” comes from the Greek: “kosmos,” the world or universe, and “polites,” a citizen. A cosmopolitan is, literally, a citizen of the world – someone who belongs not to a single city or nation but to humanity as a whole.
The idea goes back to the ancient Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes, who, when asked where he came from, is said to have replied, “I am a citizen of the world.” It was a radical claim in a world organised entirely around the city-state, and it became one of the founding ideas of a whole strand of Western thought – the notion that our deepest loyalty is to humanity rather than to any particular tribe or nation.
“Cosmopolitan” carries all of this: worldliness, sophistication, openness, the sense of someone at home anywhere. It is a flattering thing to call a person, and a flattering thing to call a bar – a promise of somewhere international, sophisticated, unbounded by parochial tastes.
The cocktail
And then, of course, there is the drink. The Cosmopolitan – vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice, lime – became one of the most famous cocktails in the world, propelled to global fame in the 1990s and early 2000s, and forever associated with a certain kind of glamorous, urban, sophisticated nightlife.
The cocktail borrowed the word’s connotations perfectly: to drink a Cosmopolitan was to present oneself as worldly, fashionable, a citizen of the sophisticated city. The drink and the word reinforced each other, and “Cosmopolitan” became shorthand for a whole lifestyle of urban glamour.
A bar called Kosmopol is drawing on both – the deep philosophical idea of world-citizenship and the shiny modern glamour of the cocktail – and the stylised spelling, dropping the “cosmopolitan” down to a punchier “Kosmopol,” gives it a contemporary, slightly Scandinavian or continental edge.
The bar
A well-regarded Chelsea bar doing a fair 4.3 across a solid sample. It trades on exactly the associations its name evokes – international, sophisticated, urban – and does so with enough success to earn a respectable score from a real crowd.
Verdict
A sophisticated Chelsea bar named after one of the oldest ideas in Western philosophy and one of the most famous cocktails of the modern age, which is quite a range for one word to cover.
The K instead of the C
The spelling deserves a note, because it is doing deliberate work. “Kosmopol” swaps the Latinate “C” of “cosmopolitan” for a “K,” which gives the name a distinctly Northern European or Scandinavian flavour – Kosmopol reads as Swedish, German or Danish rather than English or Italian.
This is a shrewd move for a bar that wants to signal cool, continental sophistication. The “K” is the letter of Scandinavian design, of Berlin nightlife, of a certain northern, minimalist, effortlessly stylish sensibility. By changing one letter, the bar shifts its whole set of associations away from the slightly dated glamour of the 1990s Cosmopolitan cocktail and toward something more contemporary and European. It is the same trick as “Jak’s” and “Seventy5th” – a small orthographic tweak that repositions the entire brand.
Verdict
A sophisticated Chelsea bar named after one of the oldest ideas in Western philosophy and one of the most famous cocktails of the modern age, which is quite a range for one word to cover.
Order a Cosmopolitan, obviously, and drink to Diogenes, the original citizen of the world, who lived in a barrel and would have hated the prices.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
The thing about LONDON PRAT for teachers is it gives you actual material for education about how London actually operates.