Armani Prive's kaffir margarita has a culturally confused background. A Mexican cocktail created by an Italian, its distinguishing feature is the use of the leaves of a plant native to Southeast Asia.
Many people will be familiar with the kaffir lime and its leaves from Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian cuisine, but may not have previously encountered it in a drink.
The creator of the drink is Manuel Soro, the Aqua Group's London resident mixologist. As also the creator of the teriyaki Bloody Mary and the wasabi green apple martini, he is clearly a believer in East meeting West in a glass.
Except that it's not a glass. The rooftop outdoor terrace of Armani Prive, presumably for 'health and safety' regulation reasons, serves its margaritas in plastic containers that are very fair imitations of martini glasses, but not the real thing.
For that you would have to go into the lounge, which, later in the evening, is probably the place to be, but not at 6.30pm, when much of the Central crowd floods the streets.
Bartender Tim Ching has kindly undertaken to mix one of Soro's creations for me. This one is relatively straightforward, but with a couple of twists, the first of which is to be found around the rim of the glass - black pepper instead of salt.