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August 11, 2023Bartenders PortraitsMy Life I was born in Łódź and raised in a small town called Chodzież in Poland. I studied journalism and also took radio broadcasting classes, but in order to earn my own money alongside my studies, I started working as a bartender in clubs. After several years of moving around Poland (Piła, Bydgoszcz, Łódź, Wrocław) as well as stints in Spain and Belgium, I finally moved to Warsaw to work more seriously as a cocktail bartender and finish my degree. I didn’t think bartending would be my future, but I was lucky enough (with only a couple of years of experience) to get a job as a barback at Pies Czy Suka. The team there introduced me to a professional way of working in gastronomy and I learned a lot from them. At the same time, I was still working for a radio station, but my salary wasn’t great and I felt that they were using me. So I decided to quit. “Having such a great team makes me really proud”. Pawel Rodaszynski Eventually I wanted to open my own place, and after leaving Pies Czy Suka, I opened El Koktel together with a friend, which gave me the final push needed to decide on a full-time career in gastronomy. Nowadays as a busy cocktail bar owner, I hardly ever tend the bar myself. I am too busy with excel spreadsheets and the likes, I’m afraid. As both a bartender and owner I really feel whole and fulfilled though. I won a couple of competitions myself, and my bar has also won domestic as well as global awards. The bartenders in my team are ambitious people and I encourage them to take part in competitions to advance in the field of mixology but also be more creative in their job. Having such a great team makes me really proud. Personally, I also have a huge interest in the culinary world. I love discovering new flavors—not only in cocktails, but in general (food, beer, and coffee). At the moment, despite the difficult times we’ve experienced over the past couple of years, I am looking for new perspectives and business opportunities. Maybe I’ll even consider opening a second bar. El Koktel In 2014, together with my friend Mateusz who I already knew from Pies Czy Suka, I decided to rent a small, cheap basement space and open a bar. There weren’t many serious cocktail dens back then in Warsaw. Because we spend all our money on renovations and on our initial spirit stock, we decide to focus on a creative usage of simple products and on great hospitality. We adapted the idea of “Modern Classic Cocktails” in our own way. After around two years we moved to a new location, which gave us the opportunity to develop the bar further. At that time, there were five people in our team. We were all bartenders, so everybody was able to mix all the drinks and we all came in with the same level of knowledge. We change our menu twice a year, with twelve seasonal cocktails, more or less. To enter, you have to ring a bell—we are not a hidden speakeasy, but we would like to provide our guests with the full gastronomy experience, which is also why there are only seated places available. We’ve got sixty seats on two levels. We’re all about making our guests happy—that is our main focus. Best Bars and Restaurants in Warsaw Warsaw Bars Recommendations🍸 Back Room🍸 Kita Koguta🍸 Woda Ognista🍸 Aura🍸 Lane’s Gin Bar Warsaw Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Bar Pacyfik🍸 Bibenda🍸 Va Bene🍸 Rozbrat 20🍸 Uki-Uki The Future When I think about it, I don’t see the future as very bright. The entire gastronomy sector has been struggling massively due to Covid, and then other, connected problems arose like people leaving the industry. I am very glad that the Polish gin market is booming, so that at least one part of the sector is thriving. And other independent distilleries are hitting the market with vodkas and liqueurs, which is a good development and it gives me hope. The problems we’ve been experiencing with logistics and supply of international products are becoming ever more serious though, but this is also a chance to discover more of our home market. Personally, I am observing that new projects and concepts are turning out to be more easygoing. And what is interesting—entrepreneurs are also using digital tools now. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel after all. Profile Year born: 1988 Special skill: I am a great presenter and speaker. In my next life I could be another Steve Jobs! ;-). Free time: I love wine, sports (triathlon and OCR competitions), collecting vinyl, and reading non-fiction. Bartender since: 2007 Biggest fail: Shaking vodka and coke Most significant career step: Creating El Koktel and winning World Class Poland 2016 and Bacardi Legacy 2016 in the same year. Favorite cocktail: Aperol Spritz is the only one I really enjoy any day of the year. Check out Pawels cocktail: Kwaśna Marta Favorite bar: Buck’n’Breck (Berlin)—just the greatest minimalist approach to be found in a bar. Warsaw in three words: Vibrant, balanced, opportunities El Koktel Website Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Piotr Jakubowski (Jakubina Foto) [...]
June 23, 2023Bartenders PortraitsMy Life I was born in Prague on May 8, 1990. After finishing school I got a scholarship because I played football semi-professionally. Since my father was a construction developer, he wanted me to step into his shoes and therefore I started college with a major in construction, but I wasn’t very talented in either geometry or math and after just one year they said I was too bad at it to continue. My parents were not exactly amused. When I got kicked out of college, my parents basically told me it was now my turn to look after myself. At that time, it was also clear I could not continue playing football professionally. I was 18 years old and realized I would never be a top player. It was really tough, but I had to see the facts as they were. Because my mum was working in gastronomy, I decided to do an apprenticeship in the kitchen and in service. It lasted three years. The first year is very practical and you have to work six months in the kitchen and six months in service. In the second year, my parents paid for me to attend a bartending workshop in school. It was organized by the Czech bartender association, but took place at the famous Tretter’s Bar in Prague. “It was a big wakeup call. I realized that I knew nothing”. Filip Stránský The instructor was Josef Zelenka. I was sitting in the middle of the bar and watched him shaking and flaring and I realized at that moment that this was what I wanted to do. It seemed very entertaining and you have a lot of knowledge that others don’t. You are kind of an aristocrat in the gastronomy sector. The course lasted one week. I especially liked the flaring part of it. My first job after graduation was in a club called Infinity. It was a famous place with lots of celebrities coming and going. I started as a barback, but I had no prior experience at this point. I remember there was another workshop—this one about spirits—taught by a guy called Samer Selbak. That was in 2009. I was flaring in front of him and when he saw it, he stopped me and told me to stop doing that shit. He asked me, “Do you know anything about gin or a Manhattan cocktail? Put the bottles back onto the speed rack, open a book and get some knowledge. Without knowledge, your flaring is only a circus show.” It was a big wakeup call. I realized that I knew nothing. What is actually in a cocktail, I wondered. I contacted Eduard Ondrareck, who was a very good bartender at the time, but I did not know him personally. I just called him up and said, “Can you teach me?” I asked him to show me all the basics, like what a Martinez cocktail is. It was a five-day intensive course, and he was really like a mentor to me. It was just the two of us and it was mind blowing. I still loved flaring though, and I started traveling with a guy called Vaclav Abraham. We were traveling for one-and-a-half years, mainly for competitions, now that I had the physical skills combined with some cocktail knowledge. We paid for all the trips ourselves and I was still working the club to get by financially. That was when the idea with the Guy Fawkes mask came up. I used it as my alter ego at competitions. Everybody was amazed and they were asking themselves who the guy with the strange mask might be. I loved it. When I was twenty-two, my brother David came up to me and asked, “Why don’t we open a bar together?” My parents instilled in us the credo that we should work together and stick together as a family. I was very much focused on the bartending part though and had no idea about the business. I only focused on being a good bartender. We were speaking about the concept for about a month and we liked the ideas we came up with. We were sitting in a park and my brother asked, “Why not use your mask in our concept.” It felt like we had hit the nail on the head. I know everything about the mask and the whole myths surrounding it—the hackers, the comic, the movie, etc. I am not a guy who likes popularity a lot and that made it easy to also incorporate it into a concept. We wanted to create a hideout not directly facing the street, so basically the hideout for a “hero”. My father found a fitting venue, which was a very cheap strip bar at the time. We basically only had one day to decide if we want to take it or not. Prague 1, the historical center, also proved a perfect location as it completed the storytelling. Our philosophy, along the lines of the original story, was that we were doing something good for the people by opening AnonymouS Bar. Friends told us we were crazy to open a bar you can’t see from the alley. Back then the street where the bar is located was rather quiet. We took the risk though and on November 5, 2013 we opened our doors as a trial run. We put the masks on and started working. I was twenty-three years old. A friend, Eduard, and me were running front of the house and my brother was pulling the strings in the background, managing the business. AnonymouS Bar / Shrink’s Office / Bulletproof AnonymouS Bar, as I already said, is set back from the street and we have a huge courtyard where people can also sit outside in the summer. We have plenty of space and attract quite a big crowd in the evenings. Around midnight it can feel a bit like a club. It can be very high volume and quite noisy. We offer around thirteen cocktails on the menu but obviously we can also do classics. What’s more, we also have an extensive spirit list. After we had managed AnonymouS Bar for two years, traveling, spreading the word about it, we got the opportunity to open another bar behind a jewelry store. We thought about a concept and figured that me and my brother’s second favorite comic is Watchmen. We wanted to have a narrative thread connecting it to AnonymouS but with a different concept. It wasn’t supposed to be like a private club. We wanted more one-on-one time with the guests and a smaller location. It was around the time when speakeasies were getting more popular again, and we thought it would be a good time to jump on that train. We hid the bar behind the jewelry store and called it Shrink’s Office in reference to Alan Moore—which also provided the link to AnonymouS Bar. We opened the bar on November 8, the birthday of Herman Rorschach, which was the perfect date for us. In the Watchmen movie, a character of the name Walter Kovacs was wearing the Rorschach mask. Given our desire to stay anonymous, it was perfect for us to use this mask for the Shrink’s Office. We also use a Rorschach test as the menu. People choose their cocktail according to ten cards representing different character types. The blends we have in the bar are the same that were used during the Prohibition era. Blends of Irish whiskies, for example, like back in the days. Cocktails are always made with blends. The third pillar of our storytelling is that the customers come in as patients and the bartenders are their therapists. Our third and latest bar has a totally different concept and is very easy going. But, of course, there is also a storytelling connection. A while ago I was traveling with Jarolsav Modlik (the CEO of all our three bars) to Kentucky and visited dive bars there. We thought it would be cool to bring this concept to Prague. We wanted to create a neighborhood bar where it’s all about bourbons and beer and table games. To quote from V for Vendetta: “Ideas are bulletproof.” Therefore we called the bar Bulletproof. Best Bars and Restaurants in Prague Prague Bars Recommendations🍸 Bugsy Bar🍸 Café Bar Pilotů🍸 Hemingway Bar🍸 Beyond the Bar🍸 Super Panda Circus Prague Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Chester🍸 Beef Bar🍸 MeatEater Steak & Wine🍸 Atélier Coctail Bar & Bistro in Brno🍸 Taro The Future That’s a tough one, especially with Covid and the current political situation. I thought since people need to drink and eat all the time, they’ll go out no matter what, but I was proven wrong. I was surprised at how small the step from survival to bankruptcy is. Just a single day can change everything. It was a tough realization. I hope that the bar industry will grow stronger, but we are in the platinum age of the bar sector, meaning, it’ll likely go downhill from here. Any crazy ideas have mostly already been done and it is hard to reinvent yourself again and again. Winter is coming and especially the winter of 2022/23 will decide in which direction it will all go. It’ll certainly get more expensive with energy prices spiking and many people having left the industry. All in all, it is very unpredictable at the moment but the signs are not pointing in a good direction … at least not for the short term. Profile Special skill: I am very good in micro magic. I like to combine my magic tricks with my work. I am always smiling and I like to bring experiences to people. Free time: I like playing desktop video games and I can relax while gaming. It frees my mind. I also like reading. Bartender since: 2009 Biggest fail: In my first year at AnonymouS, I created a custom uniform. It was super expensive and after 5–6 months, we actually didn’t use it anymore. Uniforms—never again! Most significant career step: Survived the Covid crisis with my bars. Favorite cocktail: Ramos Gin Fizz. Why: if somebody orders it in a rush, I smile and don’t ask why the hell they are ordering this in a huge rush. I always do it when traveling to see how bartenders react. If the bartender is rude, I order four of them. It is a very old drink, but still magnificent today. Check out Filip’s recipes: No. 9 and Bella Ciao. Favorite cocktail bar: Every bar where I feel comfy and welcomed. If I have to name one Atélier Coctail Bar & Bistro in Brno. Prague in three words: Freedom, crazy, safety AnonymouS Website Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©AnonymouS Bar [...]
June 2, 2023Bartenders PortraitsMy Life I was born and raised in Bremen. After finishing secondary school, at the age of sixteen, I started a three-year apprenticeship as a hotel management student in a place called Hotel zur Post. The education was a mix of school attendance and getting to know and working in all areas of the hotel. The hotel, which back then was a four-star-plus hotel also owned the Bremer Ratskeller with a Michelin-starred restaurant called L’Orchidée and a huge wine cellar. I was very young when I started my training, and thinking back to that time, I was a very chaotic person and probably too young to be standing on my own two feet. I had two guys who acted as mentors for me and without them I probably would not have finished my education. Now I am very grateful that I did though, and with the help of these mentors I learned how to be a more responsible person. After my apprenticeship I switched to working conventions and events in a five-star hotel called Swissôtel Bremen and did that for two years. “..but my superiors flat out told me that it would be like fitting a square into a circle” Dustin Le After that, my plan was to do an F&B management trainee program at the bar, but my superiors flat out told me that it would be like fitting a square into a circle—it just wasn’t a good fit. So I quit and moved to Hamburg to work at the Side Design Hotel, where I bartended for the first time. That was back in 2010. Since my apprenticeship, I had always been interested in the F&B sector. I only worked there for a year though, before moving back to Bremen and the Hotel zur Post as they had called me up to ask if I was interested in being their new man behind the bar. That is how I became a bar manager. Just eight months later, Mario Ippen from Lemon Lounge approached me and asked me to work for him as bartender. I accepted, since I was interested in getting to know something else besides a hotel bar and was also very curious about the entrepreneurial side of an independent cocktail bar. I was there for a bit more than a year. The plan was for me to move to Cologne to work at Al Salam, but a car accident changed everything. I urgently needed money, so I decided to work on a cruise ship, first as a bartender and later as chef de rang in the restaurant. This turned into an almost two-year stint, and afterwards I could finally go to Cologne to work at Al Salam for almost two years. I then got a scholarship from Jägermeister, and they sent me to work with Marian Beke in London for six months. That was a very intense time, but lots of fun and highly educative. I moved back to Berlin after that, but it didn’t really work out for me . . . Berlin is not my city. I worked for FIFTY Cocktail Heroes while there, but soon moved to Hamburg, where I started a family business in 2017 together with my wife and my brother-in-law by opening a restaurant called Nakama. Since my wife’s family is from Vietnam, Nakama has a Vietnamese/Japanese bar/restaurant concept. Three years later, in early 2020, we opened Bento, a small Japanese izakaya style lunch restaurant. Finally, the idea for Ba Nomu, our third place, had already been born before Covid hit, so in June of 2022 I opened Ba Nomu, which is what I am spending most of my time running now. Ba Nomu The bar has a playful, Asian-inspired concept. Bars such as Oriole, Cahoots, Nightjar, Salmon Guru served as inspirations for the concept. When you enter the place, the cocktail menu takes you on a journey. The glasses take on an important role. At the moment we are still in our soft opening phase. Sake will definitely be added to the menu to a greater extent. We would also like to open earlier in the afternoon / early evening. For this purpose, we’ll add classics and also cocktails on tap. The bar fits thirty people and it is seating only. It is only closed on Mondays and opens from 6 pm to 1 am at the moment. We’d like for drinks to be added and taken away from the menu regularly as kind of a living concept and without fixed times for menu changes. So far, I am very happy with how the bar has started out. Best restaurant and bars in Hamburg Hamburg Bars Recommendations🍸 Black Forest Bar🍸 Bohemian🍸 Liquid Garden🍸 Le Lion🍸 The Chug Club Hamburg Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Bootshaus🍸 Café Paris🍸 Le Plat du Jour🍸 Salt & Silver🍸 Tigre The Future I would love for bartenders to take themselves less seriously, focus on the guest and put hospitality first. The good thing about Covid is that now guests are looking forward to coming back into bars and have a good time. The focus should be on the bar and not on who the coolest of all bartenders is. This would be my only message for the future. Profile Year born: 1988 Special skills: Irony and sarcasm Free time: Spending time with my young son. He is 1.5 years old. Bartender since: 2007 Biggest fail: I caused a car accident once, which cost me a lot of time and money. Most significant career steps: Working together with Mohammad Nazzal at Al Salam in Cologne and Marian Beke at Gibson in London. I learned a great deal from both of them, which was extremely helpful in my career development. Favourite cocktail: Old Fashioned. It’s just one of the most honest drinks. Check out Dustin’s cocktail recipes: Sam’s no one and They see me riding. Favourite bar: Old Man in Hong Kong—the drinks are absolutely awesome and on point and the hospitality is great, even if you come there as a tourist. Hamburg: In three words, for me: wet, cold, home. Ba Nomu Website Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Tim Gerdts [...]
May 7, 2023Bartenders PortraitsAbout Margot was born in 1987 into a family of five in the Normandy region of France, where she grew up close to the ocean. Her mother is an excellent cook, and they would prepare food and especially bake together a lot when Margot was young. She still loves to bake today and does so regularly. Margot grew up with an artistic education and spent a lot of time in museums and practicing fine arts. After graduating high school, she moved to London where she worked as a French teaching assistant for a year, before moving back to France and embarking on a Master’s degree in law. She then moved to New York and worked for Sony Music NYC and Domino Records as an A&R administrator. Since Margot had always had a deep love for music and never stopped playing instruments her-self, working in the music industry was a dream come true. She ended up living in NYC for two years and while there spent most of her time going out, seeing shows, and visiting bars. She fell in love with the bar industry and, more specifically, cocktails. In New York Margot worked part-time at the Standard Hotel and the Wayland bar in the East Village, where she learned a lot about mixology. When she returned to France, she decided to start working as a full-time bartender and was hired by the Experimental Cocktail Club in Paris. Working in France’s most famous and pioneering cocktail bar for three years was an in-credible opportunity and learning experience for her, so when she left she decided to open her own bar. In June 2017, Combat was born. It has been two years since its inception, and what an adventure it has been. Combat As the team decided they didn’t want to open another speakeasy, Combat can be described as a modern bistro. Therefore, you can have a very fine cocktail but also enjoy a nice beer or natural wine along with some food, such as fine French appetizers. Margot loves food, and even more so she loves pairing food with drinks. She wanted Combat’s vibe to be very welcoming and simple. Music plays a key role as well, and the team pays close attention to the lighting to provide a nice and chilled-out ambiance. Margot is not a huge fan of posh bars; she prefers dive bars or wine bars with a friendly atmosphere. She wants the staff to be amiable and most importantly just be themselves. She believes the clientele enjoys that a lot. At the same time, however, Margot has very high standards when it comes to service and bartending—the drinks have to be perfect every single time. Inspiration Before developing a new cocktail menu, Margot goes traveling first. She feels a need to discover new tastes, new food, new drinks, or simply to breathe fresh air and inhale new scents. She frequents restaurants and bars pretty much every day of the year, and when she feels like staying home, she cooks. Margot believes it is crucial to challenge yourself and taste anything at least once. Favorite cocktail Margot’s favorite drink is a Cobbler. She loves wine and sherry and tends to drink a lot of straight liquor, so when she orders a cocktail, it should be refreshing and simple. Favorite bar Jigger’s in Ghent The future of the bar world The industry is definitely moving towards a more sustainable and balanced way of doing business—a development Margot really loves witnessing. Some highly talented bartenders and ambassadors work hard to make this industry as a whole a healthier and more respectful environment, which is something she deeply admires. She herself is doing the best she can to join them in this endeavor and uses as many sustainable methods and products as possible. Advice for opening a bar Bartending is not a very healthy way of life, so Margot does her best to work out as much as possible, going to sleep as early as possible, eating healthy and really controlling what she drinks. The latter is an important piece of advice for a new bar owner. Money and courage are needed; and plenty of both. It’s a long and hard journey to creating a successful bar, but it is definitely worth it. Being your own boss and working with people you like and admire is fantastic. Craziest customer experience One time, two Australian gentlemen were having a drink at the bar. They turned out to be the owners of some excellent bars and restaurants in Australia who were traveling the world in search of fresh ideas. They had some very interesting conversations with Margot, but as the two were leaving, they realized they did not have any cash to tip her. So they decided, instead of a tip, to invite her for lunch the day after at L’Arpège, one of the best restaurants in the world with three Michelin stars to its name. It was delicious and a lot of fun, and she is still in touch with them today. Paris Margot simply loves Paris. She was happy to leave the city when she moved to London and New York, but every time she returned, she was ecstatic to be back. She loves how small it is, how she can ride her bike everywhere. The food and drink scene in Paris is crazy, with so many places that she loves and admires, it just feels really good. That being said, Margot has to get out of Paris at least once a month. She needs that feeling of the grass is always greener on the other side. It just feels good to get out of the city and discover new places. Target in life Travel, read, and have a peaceful life. Best decision Moving to NYC. It was very scary but an exciting challenge. Margot first travelled there by herself and ended up living there for 2 years. While she was in the US, she travelled a lot, became very independent and learned a lot about herself. That is also where she fell in love with the food and drinks industry and it obviously changed her life. She made some major decisions, and her entire career changed. Combat Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Olivier Foulon and Christophe Meireis [...]
April 30, 2023Bartenders PortraitsAbout Jose Luis was born in Mexico City in 1988. He comes from a middle- to lower-class family who had to get by on minimal income. His entire childhood was spent living in Nezahualcoyotl, a big city of one million inhabitants just outside of Mexico City. While still at school, his plan was to study something with computers, since he really enjoyed IT. Jose Luis thought it would give him a clear career path, but all his friends chose industrial maintenance for their in-depth study. Influenced by them, he opted to become a technician in that field as well. Soon, however, he realized that he was not very proficient in mathematics and he did not particularly like the field of electricity management or the fact that he was constantly covered in grime. Therefore, while still in university, he changed his course and started a tourism degree, which he eventually completed. As is so often the case, fate intervened and he met somebody at university who was working as a waiter at wedding receptions. The pay was very good, so Jose Luis decided to follow in his friend’s footsteps. He took a course on service and “how to prepare drinks,” and soon enough was working behind the bar instead of waiting tables. Soon he was moving from place to place, but in the beginning the quality of the clubs and bars was horrible. He did not learn much from it, and he saw neither progress in his career nor any pride in what he was doing. Nevertheless, Jose had a lot of fun, he was being paid well, and could party a lot. His idea was to work in each place for a while, earn money, and have a good time. It was easy for him to leave one place behind and move to another, until the day he started working at Licorería Limantour. Then everything changed. Licorería Limantour Licorería Limantour is a very honest bar. The team likes to attend to people and good hospitality is at the center of everything they do. The liquid creations do not fall short, though, as the team takes pride in mixing excellent compositions and using local ingredients. All in all, the team strives to create a cozy, welcoming feel through both the bar’s interior design and atmosphere. The bar is located in Roma, a district of Mexico City, and has a total of ninety seats. The menu changes twice a year, and developing a new one is a team effort led by the managers. The managers come up with a theme and present their ideas to the staff at a team meeting using mood boards. The staff are then encouraged to provide ideas based on the theme, and before anything is approved for their new menu, a group tasting takes place to ensure the highest possible quality. This takes place together with the second Licorería bar in Mexico City, which is located in Polanco. All in all, there are around fourteen people working in both bars. The bar is owned and operated by Ritual H, a hospitality consulting company based in Mexico City. Inspiration Jose Luis’s inspiration comes from many places. According to him, Mexicans are dreamers from the day they are born. It is such an amazing country, with a rich, colorful culture, creative gastronomy, and a joyful people. It is very easy to be-come inspired in a country like Mexico. Favorite cocktail Dry Martini, for sure. It is one of the simplest drinks in regards to ingredients, but it is also one of the easiest cocktails to get wrong. This is why Jose Luis puts extra care into making it and is always curious to see how other bartenders do it. Check out Jose’s recipes Vicuña and Oakland. Favorite bar Two Schmucks in Barcelona. The future of the bar world Jose Luis is convinced that supply will eventually exceed demand. He hopes that the people behind the counter are ready for that kind of change. To be ready, one needs to be more professional, smarter than the others, have more experience, and be more conscientious. Advice if someone wants to open a bar Do not rush! He thinks the right moment to do it will come to everyone at the right time. Mexico City Mexico City is his favorite city in the world. It has a lot of energy, and it makes you feel like part of a big machine. Target in life To be happy. Best decision Go for that Agua de alfalfa 13 years ago; meaning to become a bartender. When Jose was younger, he was not sure what he wanted to do with his life. He feels very fortunate to have chosen this profession since it makes him very happy. Licoreria Limantour Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Christian Martinez [...]
April 16, 2023Bartenders PortraitsAbout Wolfgang was born and raised in Munich. From an early age, the thirty-nine-year-old was interested in the hospitality industry and therefore decided to start an apprenticeship as a restaurant professional. Following his formal education and armed with a passion for bartending, he worked his way up to become head bartender at the Eden Hotel Wolff in Munich. What followed were different bartending jobs on a cruise ship and in various bars in Munich. After seven years in the industry, Wolfgang moved to Zurich where he took over the position of bar manager at the Onyx Bar, a prestigious place located in the Park Hyatt. He worked at Onyx for seven years until 2014. If you had asked Wolfgang five years ago whether he wanted to be an entrepreneur, he would have definitely said no. Back then, he was convinced that it would be too difficult or just wouldn’t work out, so it was never really on the table for him. He had a good position at the Hyatt, working for a big chain. The management asked if Wolfgang was interested in opening a bar at the Park Hyatt in New York, but at the time, his son had just turned one and moving to the United States was out of the question. And still, Wolfgang was pondering the question of what he wanted to do with his life. He was having a great time at the Onyx, but there was little room for personal development. Food and beverage management had always been of interest to Wolfgang, but it would have taken a long time to learn and he felt he was already too old to embark on this new career path. More and more often, though, the thought of starting his own business came to his mind. Out of curiosity, he started to explore opportunities on the market. Were there other bar projects being developed? What was missing in Zurich? How expensive would it be and how difficult? Eventually, Wolfgang started working on his own business plan and found a partner in Michel, an old colleague he had known for more than fifteen years. Michel was immediately hooked and the idea for Tales Bar started to take form. Tales Bar Tales is a place with a relaxed atmosphere where you feel at ease and at home. The level of the cocktail scene was already high in Zurich by 2015; therefore, Wolfgang was looking for a way to set himself apart. Tales’ pillars are personality and hospitality. A special feature are the bar’s long opening hours. Wolfgang wanted a place where guests can come after midnight and sip on cock-tails in a cozy environment. A space that is small and intimate and also offers a bite to eat. It was not easy to find a suitable location. At first, it was very demoralizing as the rents were just too steep. Wolfgang was lucky to find his eventual location, but there were drawbacks such as no terrace, the lack of parking spaces, and the location between the inner city and Langstrasse, Zurich’s well-known nightlife district. Tales can host up to thirty-five people seated. Wolfgang likes to recommend drinks to his guests and, despite having a menu, many enjoy getting one of his customized cocktail creations. Inspiration Wolfgang likes to read a lot, especially old and new bar books, but he also uses the internet as a resource. Trends are another source of inspiration—he likes to keep track of what is going on in the bar world. At the moment, for example, acidic flavors are an emerging trend. Wolfgang likes to exchange new spirit ideas with colleagues from the industry, mix his inspiration with a current trend, and start to build a cocktail from there. Sometimes the process begins at the other end, though, and it is Wolfgang creating from scratch, beginning with a style or just a glass. There are many roads that can lead to a cocktail and not one of them is wrong. He loves to visit other bars, especially in Switzerland. In fact, he would love to have more time for it, but at the moment his own bar requires his full attention. Favorite cocktail Wolfgang says it’s difficult to name just one, but he prefers simple cocktails such as a Daiquiri, Adonis, or Remember the Maine. He prefers it straight-lined, so you know exactly what you’ll get, no matter which mood you are in. He also loves to order Manhattans or Negronis. You also know what to expect with these cocktails. He usually starts the evening with something he knows and becomes more experimental later on. Com­pared with other bartenders, he says, he’s able to just lean back and relax in other bars. He doesn’t judge, he just wants to enjoy and indulge. The first drink, however, is always something of a test, he admits. Check out Wolfgang’s cocktail recipes: Into the Woods and Jailhouse Punch. Favorite bar He loves Zurich’s Kronenhalle, Old Crow, and also Bar 63. The future of the bar world The bar world, to Wolfgang, is at a point where anything is possible. A lot of different concepts are being tested, crazy experiments are happening, and it doesn’t look like this trend has any intention of slowing down. As he watches these developments, Wolfgang is asking himself: Does it really make sense to be even more elaborate? Are bartenders making drinks for themselves, or for the guests? The guests ultimately want to understand and participate in what is happening. On the one hand, there is a movement towards more elaborate cocktails, and on the other hand are the bartenders who want to go back to the basics and just focus on the guest. There is a limit to creativity, however, especially a financial one. Concepts that are too exotic usually do not last and make it difficult for a business to survive unless somebody chips in to keep the place afloat. In Switzerland, the situation is especially complicated, since fixed costs are sky-high already. Wolfgang believes the market will calm down and become more straightforward: classic cocktails with excellent quality. For him, consistency and hospitality are the words of the future. Advice for opening a bar Before love for the craft, economic feasibility should be the first thought of an entrepreneur. It may be the least fun aspect, but without sound financial planning, the concept will not survive. Nothing, neither a fine interior nor excellent cocktails can save a concept without sound finances. Bookkeeping was one field Wolfgang would have loved to know more about before he opened Tales. If costs are high, one had better have an understanding on how to overcome or adapt to them. Everybody is euphoric and passionate when opening a bar and they think they will make big bucks right away. Unfortunately, that is not usually the case. Wolfgang advises to start with the unpleasant things first. The cocktail menu can wait. Remember, the bar industry is not known for quick money. Zurich Wolfgang has been living in Zurich for twelve years. It is where his son was born; it is where he started his own business. A lot has happened in the last decade. He would not call it home yet, since he spent so much time in Munich, but it is the center of his life now and he does not plan on leaving anytime soon. Closer to retirement, he can see himself moving back to Munich though. Target in Life Is to have a solid income for his family by owning a bar. He hopes to have a beautiful life and the means to enjoy it. He hopes to stay healthy and be able to offer many more memorable evenings in his bar for his guests. Best decision in life In principle, the choice to go into gastronomy. Much of how Wolfgang’s career path evolved came down to luck and happenstance. Moving to Switzerland ultimately led to opening Tales, which has been a wonderful continuation of his personal story. Tales Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Steven Kohl [...]
December 2, 2022Bartenders PortraitsMy Life I am 34 years old and was born in Schwarzenberg, Bregenzerwald in Austria. I grew up on a farm surrounded by lots of crafts, handiwork and natural things. After school I started working in gastronomy as the possibilities in the region were plenty. Both tourism and crafts were huge drivers of the local economy, but I decided on a three-year service apprenticeship in 2003 in a hotel called “Post” in Bezau. It was classic gastronomy work and provided me with lots of skills as it was really tough and hands on. The tone in the industry was rough, but I still learned a lot. I don’t wish it on anyone though—it was a lot to learn in a short period of time. I also learned what not to do later in life. Fair hours and working conditions were far-away dreams, likewise was decent staff food and good team communication. I went on to work in various hotels, such as the Hirschen in Schwarzenberg, Schwanen in Bezau, and Gams in Bezau. It was all standard hotel work—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—very straightforward. Then I moved to Dornbirn which felt a lot more like a city to me. I worked at Innauer there, which was the first time I got in touch with cocktails and food. The bar was ambitious, and I was first introduced to barbacking then. I stayed at Innauer for three years from 2009 to 2011. Then came a big cut as I wanted to move to either Hamburg, Berlin, or Vienna. Hamburg was my first choice, and I wanted to work in a hotel again, preferably in the F&B department. “What I really wanted was to fulfil my dream and develop my own concepts and creations.” Hubert Pavao Peter I randomly sent F&B Manager applications. In the end, I decided to move to Vienna and help with the opening of a new hotel. It was a big project for Hotel Topazz and Hotel Lamée, lots of ambition, lots of funding, but it was also a bit of a bubble. I stayed there for two years. It felt like an entirely new life with all these new impressions in the big city. There was also a lot of partying, which sometimes made it difficult to balance life and work. That time also made me realize what I want and what I don’t want. With lots of input from management on one side and staff challenges on the other, you are stuck in the middle and get pushed from both sides, which was a vital but very tough lesson for me. So I decided to turn my back on the hotel industry. The bar in the hotel was ambitious and the team did a lot of their own creations, but I realized I wanted to create things rather than solve problems all day, so I took some time off in order to think clearly. What I really wanted was to fulfil my dream and develop my own concepts and creations. I then got the opportunity to open up a place called Kussmaul (now called Das Spittelberg). The project was ambitious, they wanted to cook on Michelin-star level, had their own bakery and they were also looking for a Bar Chef. It was the perfect match, as I wanted to do everything from scratch and the restaurant and concept followed that same philosophy. It worked out very well, was good fun and I was very happy. There was also a very fruitful exchange of knowledge, we tested many new things in a kind of trial-and-error approach and I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I stayed there for a bit more than two years from 2014 to 2016. While cooking was also of interest to me, cooking with liquids turned out to be the big game changer. I had done most of the other things before—cheese sommelier, water sommelier—but cooking with liquids was new back then, and I saw a lot of opportunities for doing something that hadn’t been done before. After Kussmaul I needed a change and decided to open a pop-up. I had the opportunity to set up a bar called Barrikade at night in a place that functioned as a café during the day. It was also there that I got to know Lucas, my business partner. Lucas was cooking in a place close by and was a regular customer at Barrikade. We quickly became friends. I worked the pop-up for a year and it was right there that the idea came up to open up something together on our own. A decision had to be made to either move back to Vorarlberg or stay in the city, and we started looking for a venue. We finally found Bruder, but it took us a good two years to find it. During that time and also before, during the Barrikade time, I ran projects for a hotel owner, and it was with her help that we were finally able to find the Bruder location. We opened Bruder in January of 2019. Bruder We both had undergone conventional gastronomy training and had lots of stories about the craziness of the gastronomy sector. We talked a lot about how we wanted to go forward. We wanted to move away from the usual Gault Millau or Michelin acclaimed restaurant 2.0 and wanted to be free from norms and things that have always been done the way they were done. Our aim was to create our own F&B cosmos. Craftsmanship, working with regional suppliers we know personally, knowing all of our produce. It is indeed a more complicated way to do things, but it’s more honest and results in better quality. Being true to our beliefs was important to us. Now we have rotovaps, we brew our own beer and produce our own cheese and sausages—just trying out new things. But in the end, everything needs to work out financially as well. It was always important to us to open a place that makes sense. Since it is our own money, running it successfully was pivotal. It was also about making use of food waste and reducing it as much as possible. Therefore, fermenting is also a big thing at Bruder. Once we found the location, we started renovating the place and did a lot of it ourselves, even though we aren’t talented handymen. While renovating, we were drinking a lot of beer and got to know each other very well as we were shaping ideas on how to work together and what we wanted to achieve. Our focus was on natural wine, having our own wine, prosecco, pet nat, and vermouth. The community grew and, as mentioned, beer was also a focus. Cider came into play too with our network expanding over time. We even had guests bring in fruit for us to use—everything from apples to berries—which is fantastic. In the end, the staff and guests shape what we do in a way. Our philosophy is not strictly regional, only including Vienna and surroundings, but we also look to Italy for citrus fruits. This is also regional for me. Working regionally and always with a direct connection to suppliers, that’s our core strategy. We go foraging ourselves and hunt mushrooms, which gives me great pleasure, as I can disconnect in nature. Since we ferment in the kitchen and bar, we have a lot of flexibility and can simply focus on a product we used for fermenting. Bruder is basically a store within a store. That way the sheer variety is fantastic. There are four cocktails and eight long drinks on the menu. But of course, we can also do classics with a twist. For example, we don’t have Campari but we have a substitute which we produce on our own and this is how it works with many other products as well. Best Bars and Restaurants in Vienna Vienna Bars Recommendations🍸 Espresso (Burggasse)🍸 Parfumerie🍸 Miranda🍸 Club: Grelle Forelle Vienna Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Mast🍸 Kommod🍸 Pramerl & the wolf🍸 Automat Welt The Future The future is happening as we speak. We opened in 2019, which was a normal year, and then Covid hit and everything changed. We were thinking about the future differently before and after the pandemic, as we’ve learned a lot during this difficult time. Bruder started with four people in the beginning and now we are a team of nine. We are trying to be faster, more agile, cheekier even. Don’t calculate every little detail, try out new things—we even expanded during the pandemic and added a section to the restaurant. So dare to try. We started selling wine and opened a store next door. We invested a lot in wine. Basically, we were ordering wine with suppliers while everybody else was not buying anything at all. You should never lose your youthful foolishness. I would love to sell more of our products, as we do everything ourselves, and also expand the store business. Expanding production of our products in general is another thing, such as cultivating produce from the start and not just ordering from a supplier—going to the very source of everything. Profile Year born: 1988 Special skills: The craziness to never sit still and always be on the hunt for something new. When people tell me something is impossible, I will see it as a challenge and prove them wrong. Free time: We forage and gather ingredients on our own. When the weather is good, I’ll go into the woods around Vienna and look for mushrooms or herbs. Bartender since: 2014 Biggest fail: Nothing really. Looking back, I am really happy how everything has turned out. Favourite cocktail: Negroni, but mainly, I love to drink neat. Check out Peter’s Bruder Negroni Favourite bar: I’ve never been there but have to say Velvet in Berlin. They have a similar philosophy to Bruder. My all-time favourite is Barred in Rome. They focus on wine though. Also, a bistro that I love is Otto in Bratislava. Dream: At some point I’d like to have more time for things that I want to do: going back to the roots and starting over again. Managing the place now is also moving me away from the core and the love for why I started it. Bruder Website Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Sophie Kirchner & Manuel Haring & Marius Mammerler & Kardelen Ari [...]
September 15, 2022Bartenders PortraitsMy Life My name is Denis, I’m 28 years old and was born in Italy—more precisely in Calabria in southern Italy. Honestly, I don’t even know where to start when it comes to talking about my life. There’s so much to say, because trust me when I say that it has been a crazy, exhausting, and often tough one, but also funny and unique, filled with great people and amazing souls. Let’s start from the very beginning, I was born in Cosenza, a small town in Calabria. I grew up in Luzzi, also a small town of about 10,000 souls and a very old-fashioned town with hardly any opportunities for growth. Still nowadays it’s quite poor in terms of both innovative ideas and economic development. The quality of life was what made this town great though; I remember, my friends and I spent hours and hours outside playing football or “hide and seek” in the woods. Life there was simple but very genuine and loyal. I talk about that part of my life with great joy and pleasure. “I loved it, I was very young, rebellious, and full of ideas.”Denis Francesco Pisano Working became a part of my daily life from a very early age (16 years old). While I was still a student in high-school, I began working in this beautiful and cozy little bar that was owned by my father. That place soon shaped my work ethic in what it is today; I remember working until very late and waking up early in the morning in order to attend classes at school. After my hospitality studies I took over the bar from my father. I ran it for three more years, trying to give it a different direction and new concept, making some cocktails and turning it into a disco-bar on the weekends, as well as organizing some cultural and political gatherings now and then. I loved it, I was very young, rebellious, and full of ideas. I felt like I could change the world. Looking back though, I now realize that Calabria could never have given me what I wanted, and that it would have been very difficult to shine in a place like that, one that is still plagued by crime and governed by a strong patriarchal mentality. Something was telling me: that’s no way to live. That mentality didn’t suit me, I was different—I felt different and I wanted a change. I decided to travel, so I stepped into the unknown for the first time and believe me, I couldn’t have made a better choice. I moved to Puglia, since my girlfriend was from there, and I remember having no money, no place to stay, no job or any experience whatsoever. I didn’t know what to do and what my future would bring. I just knew one thing: I had to take action, the earlier the better. And that’s exactly what I did. I began working odd jobs in construction, leafleting, bars, discos, and so on. I remember working two jobs and sleeping literally three hours a night. That allowed me to get a small house for my girlfriend and myself in the central part of a small town called Fasano. I kept working that way for many months until one night, while working in one of the bars, this guy approached me and asked if I would consider starting a job in a very well renowned hotel in the same city, called Borgo Egnazia. I knew this could change my life, but I had so little experience. I had never been abroad and only spoke Italian. I accepted a job as an “extra commis at the bar” in Borgo Egnazia. That means carrying ice, washing and polishing glasses for hours on end and only being paid on an hourly basis whenever they needed me. But I was happy. It was my first experience in an international environment; I could meet people from everywhere and practice my English. I worked in Borgo for two years, learning to be more empathetic and to understand clients and their needs as well as diving into the worlds of mixology and classic cocktails. After two years, something clicked. The same feeling I had experienced in Calabria that led me to change drastically returned. I could not stay in Italy anymore, if I really wanted to be someone. What’s the best city to go to if you are a hotel bartender who wants to improve even more and become even more charming and in love with what you do? London, of course! If I were to use a single word to describe London, I would say INTENSE. London is undoubtedly a temple of mixology, and as many know, one of the best cities in the world in terms of career opportunities. The first few months were very difficult, but I was lucky to find a great job after only a month. I started working as a barback at the GŎNG bar in the Shangri-la Hotel in the Shard, the highest building in the city. It has literally been the best work experience of my life. GŎNG was in one of the top spots in the ranking of 5-star hotel bars at that time. I learned about Chinese and Japanese bar techniques including sake culture, ice carving, hard shake, and so on. It was a new discovery every day. I kept learning and evolving constantly and only after four months as barback, I was promoted to bartender. Since then, I’ve never stopped creating, improving, and learning, my mind is almost like a constant idea machine. I improved so much in a very small amount of time that my head bartender, Christian Maspes, proposed I move with him to Mayfair, where he was set to become bar manager in a new super-luxury 5-star hotel bar called Pine Bar. I accepted, but to be fair, it has been one of the most challenging experiences in my career so far. New launches are tough. Opening a high-end hotel in Mayfair, the expectations are high and the level of anxiety even worse. As a team we had to be perfect, absolutely no mistakes allowed. But eventually we got the hang of it and it turned out beautiful. Months went by and I realized I needed to do something else; I needed to learn more and find new inspiration. At that time, The Connaught Hotel was looking for staff for a new opening. Although they were looking for waiters, I did not care, I wanted to learn more and I gave it a shot. Once again, it was a new launch, but I had chosen to go down that path, meaning I was going to do two openings in less than a year. That experience taught me a lot about perfect service, and I can honestly say that the Connaught Hotel is one of the best hospitality schools in the world. I did not stay there for very long though, as I didn’t want to be a waiter. I just wanted to learn more about providing perfect service to clients. That is why I quit after a few months and went back to GŎNG bar and stayed there until the end of my stay in Britain, which came when the pandemic hit the capital. Shangri-La shut down for more than six months, and I was stuck in London with my flatmates waiting for the government to give us some news about what would happen. The good news never seemed to arrive though, I only got them when I had already decided to move on. Almost seven years after I had left Calabria and the village I grew up in, I realized it was time to go back, reflect on all I had done and reconnect with nature and a simpler way of life. I started to read a lot and learned so much about myself. It was during this period that I also began studying at university for a bachelor’s degree in psychology, which was remote at first, but eventually brought me to Sweden for six months. In order to continue after the first six months, I would have needed to do so in Swedish, but since I don’t speak the language, that wasn’t possible. After completing the six-months course, I had to leave. Even though the course was finished, it kind of felt unfinished to me. In the meantime, though, I haven’t stopped working, I actually became head bartender in a small boutique hotel called Palazzo Daniele in Puglia. Here I really connected with nature and proposed a super sustainable menu with zero food miles, using products directly from our vegetable and fruit garden. I worked very hard alongside my colleagues and spent many hours looking for inspiration in order to come up with great ideas and an even more sustainable menu. Right now, we are constantly receiving great feedback and we keep improving, working with various types of fermentation and discovering new flavors. Palazzo Daniele Bar The Palazzo Daniele bar aims to be a temple of sustainable mixology. We want to give people new experiences and take them on a path that links sustainable products and the Puglian territory with the most modern and innovative mixology techniques. We want to look towards the future and be innovative while using the traditional flavors for which Italy and especially Puglia have become famous. Futuristic but simple, to put it in a nutshell. Soon though, I will endeavour to a new adventure, again away from Italy quite far south east. I have accepted a position as assistant bar manager at the Park Hyatt hotel in Sydney. The bar seems to be well connected with the restaurant even though the restaurant already has its own bar. The bar is classic, very elegant service, good cocktails and an extensive wine list. After two years of covid there is a lot to be done. First a new menu is planned and I am looking forward to that challenge. Best restaurants and bars in the area of Gagliano Gagliano Region Bars Recommendations🍸 Farmacia Balboa (Tricase)🍸 Anam Terrace (Acquaviva)🍸 Laurus (Lecce)🍸 1000 Misture (Casarano) Gagliano Region Restaurant Recommendations🍸 La Calura (Santa Maria di Leuca)🍸 Retrò Casa Museo (Castrignano del Capo)🍸 La Taverna del Porto (Tricase Porto)🍸 La Farmacia dei Sani (Ruffano The Future I no longer see bars as purely places of entertainment. In 2022, I am more than convinced that bars have become places of cultural exchange. I look at my bar and see people from all over the planet talking and connecting with each other, describing the flavors they perceive in each cocktail and eventually evolving the conversations to address political issues by discussing the perspectives of different countries. What is this if not cultural exchange? It is almost like being in a place of culture or a university. We as bartenders are just the regulators of the right amount of alcohol that needs to be served to stimulate ideas and new visions. I don’t want bars that get people drunk, I want bars that turn people into visionaries. Profile Year born: 1994 Special skills: In one of my colleague’s opinion: Denis’ superpower, on top of being an excellent bartender, is that he could carry on a conversation with a tree (if only the tree replied). He’s the most talkative person I’ve ever met and makes every single guest feel welcome and at ease. And that’s a super skill to have when you deal with so many people every day. Free time: I love reading. It’s the main thing I do during my free time. I also work out a lot, almost every day. Bartender since: I started working in bars in 2008; became a bartender in 2015. Biggest fail: Not being able to keep studying at the Swedish university. Not fighting for the improvement of the region I was born and grew up in. Most significant career step: Working at The GŎNG bar, working and learning at the Connaught Hotel. Favorite cocktail: All of them . . . just kidding. I would never say no to a super cold Dry martini. It’s very difficult to recognize the subtle flavors in it. I entertain myself doing it. Check out Denis’ cocktail recipes: Il Conte in Palazzo and Darjeeling and Mango Favorite bar: Each bar has its own story, concept, and vision. Can’t say which one is my favorite, but I appreciate Tayer + Elementary in London. Alex and Monica are great bartenders and what they do is very close to my own idea of what cocktails should be. Gagliano del Capo: In three words: small, boring, real Palazzo Daniele Website Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Claudia Link [...]
August 28, 2022Bartenders PortraitsNext to London, New York is still considered the cocktail Mecca of this world. It is hard to keep track of new bar openings if you don’t live in the city and it can be difficult to decide if to try a new place or if you want to imbibe in an old favourite. Leyenda, run by Ivy Mix, is certainly one of these more established bars, located in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, just a stone’s throw away from the famous Clover Club. If you want to indulge in some excellent mezcal, Leyenda is certainly the place to go. About Ivy was born in 1985 and raised in central Vermont. She studied at Bennington College and holds a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy and fine arts. She was nineteen years old when she first came in contact with mixology in 2004. That year she traveled to Antigua in Guatemala, the country’s old colonial capital. While there she stumbled over a bar called Café No Sé—which if you know anything about mezcal might ring a bell. When looking at images of No Sé, you can easily see why Ivy fell in love with this bar. It was not only the bar she fell in love with, though, but also a guy working there. Hence she ended up spending as much time at No Sé as she could. Luckily for her, back then you were able to just put money in a jar as payment, as No Sé was using an honor-based system as a form of settling the bill. As is to be expected from someone so young, Ivy didn’t have unlimited financial means. As her bar tab kept growing and her money dwindled, soon the logical thing to do was to work there to pay it off. That was her first time working as a bartender and her first experience in the hospitality industry. During her time there, she also discovered her love for mezcal. The problem was that illegal mezcal was literally illegal in Guatemala at the time. Only five agave spirits had an exporting license back then, and illegal was not one of them. To keep No Sé stocked with the precious supply, Ivy joined the founder on trips to Mexico for smuggling missions. To get it over the border, they both dressed as missionaries and told the border control that they were carrying libros para los niños—books for the children. Her intense green eyes must have bewitched all the guards since they were never caught. She stayed in Central America for a couple of years and traveled extensively throughout Latin America. In 2008 she moved back to New York, but did not think about working as a bartender in the United States. She did not have any experience in regards to cocktails back then, but was forced to start working as a bartender as the economy crashed right after her move. So in 2009 she got a job at Mayahuel in New York, which had just opened. It took a couple of tries to land that job and she had lots of competition, since many others had also turned to bartending to pay their bills. When the economy takes a dive, bars often do well since many drown their sorrows in booze. From Mayahuel she moved on to Fort Defiance and later to other bars around Brooklyn to broaden her horizon and build a career in the bartending business. Eventually, Ivy was employed by Julie Reiner, a forerunner of the modern cocktail renaissance. She joined the team of Julie’s SoHo tiki bar Lani Kai (now closed) and later Clover Club, before finally opening her own place, Leyenda, in 2015 with the help of Julie and her business partner. Aside from her bartending, she is also the cofounder of Speed Rack—a national cocktail competition that creates a platform for female bartenders while simultaneously raising money for breast cancer-related charities. Ivy started Speed Rack when she realized that most of her colleagues were men. This might be due to the speakeasy renaissance, which celebrates the prohibition era and its gentlemen’s club image that didn’t include female bartenders, but Ivy didn’t like that kind of side-lining at all. Speed Rack launched in 2011 and has been successfully changing the way people view women in the predominantly male-dominated cocktail-mixing business. So far, the events have raised over 600,000 USD for charity. Crowning her impressive career, Ivy Mix has won the American Bartender of the Year at Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards and in 2016 was named Mixologist of the Year by Wine Enthusiast. Leyenda Leyenda is intended to be an accessible, open, and fun bar for everyone, regardless of nationality, socio-economic status, race, or gender. Ivy wants Leyenda to be a church of sorts where everybody is welcome to worship. When people enter, it is a bright, open, and welcoming place, not dimly lit or hard to grasp. The idea is to serve excellent drinks and food that complements this welcoming environment. The focus in on mezcal, but there are other spirits and cocktails available of course. It’s easy to identify the joyful Latin-American approach to hospitality in this place. It’s vibrant and one can feel the joie de vivre suffusing the air. Inspiration Ivy is inspired by food. Particularly by pastry menus and pastry chefs. In her opinion these chefs master the only other culinary profession that really has to balance sweet, sour, and savory like mixologists do. She also finds inspiration from the spirits themselves and the different notes with-in them. These are her main two starting points for new recipes. Favorite cocktail Ivy usually drinks Negronis because they are hard to mess up, but also very difficult to truly master. She personally does not make her Negroni in equal parts, but doesn’t mind when she receives it like this. She can order a Negroni anywhere and will always enjoy it. Check out Ivy’s recipe Shadow Boxer and Tia Mia. Favorite bar Pare de Sufrir in Guadalajara. The future of the bar world Ivy believes the industry is finally moving away from the sanctity of the drink to the overall experience of being in a bar. Her hope is that bars will return to excellent hospitality and comprehensive guest satisfaction, and that bartenders will get their heads out of their jiggers. Advice for opening a bar DON’T!! No, really, it is the hardest thing Ivy has ever done. It is not enough that someone likes cocktails and bartending or has won some competitions or awards, you need to know how to run a business. That is essential. Brooklyn Brooklyn for her is home. Brooklyn is New York without the mayhem of Downtown Manhattan. It is a massive, sprawling city, but with so many different flavors and cultures—a veritable melting pot of people and ideas. Ivy avoids Manhattan like the plague, but in Brooklyn she thrives. Her bar is here; her home is here. She lives close to the park and gets to run and walk her dogs there. And it’s easy to travel anywhere in the world from here. Sometimes Ivy feels like she wants to move, but for her and her love of life and celebrating it, nothing comes close to Brooklyn. Best decision To move to Guatemala when she was 19. It changed her life forever. Target in life To be able to see the world and celebrate the things in it that she loves. Leyenda Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Markus Marty [...]
July 19, 2022Bartenders PortraitsAbout Fabio was born in 1989 in San Severo in the Apulia region of Italy. His journey into the world of bartending began with him following in the footsteps of his older brother Mario. Mario is also a bartender, now based in Hong Kong and working at St. Regis Bar. Fabio always felt a certain affinity for hospitality, probably coming from his education: he studied at the hotel and hospitality school in Termoli, in southern Italy. His first work experiences were in pizzerias and cafes; then during the second and third year of hospitality school—at the age of 15–16—Fabio started traveling around Italy to get to know other regions and hotels. This is where he first started to broaden his knowledge on bar service. One of the best experiences he has had was at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni on the shore of Lake Como. Working there, he could feel a real ceremony of hospitality every day and during every shift. After Fabio graduated hospitality school at the age of eighteen, he lived in Milan for one year where he worked at the Carlton Baglioni Hotel. After that he moved to London, where he started working at Montgomery Place in Notting Hill. This particular bar marked a big step in his career, as it was one of the most renowned spots in the London bar industry for many years and one of the best bars in the world at that time. After three-and-a-half years in London, Fabio had an opportunity to move to São Paulo, Brazil, where he started to work at SubAstor. He felt that this job was providing him with a unique environment where special attention was being paid to guests, anticipating their needs, instead of simply serving food or drinks. SubAstor SubAstor is an “urban chic” bar that opened in June 2009. It is the first modern-style cocktail bar in Brazil and, since opening, the main goal has been to provide guests with the best experience and to introduce them to the new international cocktail culture that goes beyond the Brazilian classics. The team consists of nine people: three bartenders, one bar cook (a bartender in charge of the kitchen), three cocktail waiters, one hostess, and of course Fabio. A strong work ethic is very important to all of them. The team looks after one another and every one of the team members is in charge of training and welcoming new employees. The floor manager trains the new member on the floor, bar-backs for bar setup, orders, and cleaning schedule, and so on. The menu changes every three months according to seasonality, as the menu is based on the different biomes of Brazil. SubAstor has a capacity of seventy-two seats. The cocktail bar is owned by Companhia Tradicional de Comercio—a company that was founded in 1996 and today has a total thirty-seven establishments in São Paulo (burger bars, pizzerias, brasseries, and botecos). Inspiration Fabio believes that inspiration should come from any of your personal passions. It could be music, arts, or exchanging ideas with people that you are close to and are part of your everyday life. At the same time, according to him, five points should be paid attention to in order to spark your creative process: awareness, inspiration, interpretation, execution, and evolution. Favorite cocktail A cocktail Fabio really likes is the Bijoux Caju from his own menu. It uses gin as a base, falernum, lime, a dash of yellow Chartreuse, vermouth bianco with hops amarillo and mocororó (fermented cashew juice, which is like a fruitier cider that dates back to indigenous Brazilian culture). Check out Fabio’s recipe: Pimenta de Cheiro. Favorite bar Untitled in London. The future of the bar world Fabio feels that the bar industry and the global bartending community are moving towards a much more mature and accurate education on how to run a bar, based on common sense (including preparation and environmental issues such as sustainability) and how to spread this knowledge to a new generation of bartenders—also involving producers (of spirits and fresh products) in the process. Advice for opening a bar The best advice Fabio can give, is to travel the world as much as you can before opening a bar. This will inspire and add more ideas to the bar concept in order to be more authentic. Craziest customer experience While working at the Baglioni Hotel in Milan at the age of eighteen, Fabio received a “life or death” request from a guest, Signor B., owner of a local vineyard, but really a “business-talking” man. Most of what he was saying might not have been true, but he was always spinning a funny yarn while sitting at the bar drinking his champagne. He was the kind of guest who could entertain the whole staff and all the guests around the bar floor. He was always there with his security guard. One day the security guard went out to get some food and Signor B. suddenly called Fabio over to him. When he went over to Signor B.’s table, he was in the process of preparing an injection and he asked Fabio to help him inject it. “I thought about calling the spa to help him, as the spa was the closest possible place to fulfill this kind of request.” But the man insisted Fabio do it, saying that it was the sort of medication that must be taken immediately. “So he started pulling his pants down . . .” The only thing Fabio could think of doing in that moment was to take him to the back of the bar, to a washing room right behind the shelves, and give him the injection. São Paulo São Paulo has a unique energy! It’s a tropical city but heavily influenced by many other countries (Italy, Japan, Africa, and Lebanon, in particular). It’s the perfect place to develop a mixed product based on your environment. In São Paulo, one is never afraid of creating something that won’t suit one’s customers, so long as it’s based on a concept and is easy to understand. Target in life His main target is to develop and create a new type of bar in Brazil based on immigrant culture and local biodiversity. Best decision in life To move to Brazil! SubAstorSubAstor SubAstor Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Wellington Nemeth & Ricardo d’Angelo [...]
April 19, 2022Bartenders PortraitsMy Life I’m originally from Mainz. After finishing school, I started training in hospitality in Freiburg, and following my studies and army service, I started working as service staff in a business hotel in Mainz. At one point my superior came up to me and said: “Follow me to the bar please.” He told me that Andrea, the bartender, had just quit and so he showed me where to find the syrups, juices, spirits, and all the recipes. “Have fun, you are our bartender now!” This was back in 2001. I tried to do the job as well as I possibly could, but obviously I did not use any jiggers or pourers to measure exactly. In retrospect, I think the cocktails must have been awful. After that position I moved around Germany for a bit, was working here and there, and in 2005 I decided to move to Bath, England for a couple of years. I worked in various hotels as bartender, sommelier, and restaurant manager. “In retrospect, I think the cocktails must have been awful”! Knud Scheibelt In 2010 I came to Stuttgart and started to work at Ciba Mato (permanently closed), a high-volume bar. We did up to 800 cocktails a night. It was a tough place; you were always on a clock and had to be fast, but I learned a lot during that time. A year later I was already ready to open my own place, when I walked by the location of today’s Schwarz Weiss Bar. It looked like the bar was available to rent. At the time there was a flat available to rent above the bar, so I called up the tenant and asked if the bar was available as well. The bar had been vacant for nearly a year when I found it, but the location was pretty central. Maybe it was due to its small size that nobody was interested, but I decided to start renovating the place in August 2011. After a couple of months of hard work to completely remodel the place, I opened on November 11, 2011. We had a three-day opening celebration and the bar has been going strong ever since. Schwarz Weiss Bar So first of all, why is the bar called Schwarz Weiss Bar? When I started out as an entrepreneur, I always imagined owning the perfect bar. There was a movie I had seen at the time which in one scene featured a big room with small round tables and a lamp in the middle of each table. The movies had been shot in black and white. The people were dressed up in evening attire, were smoking cigars, and sipping champagne, whisky and cognac. On stage there was a grand piano, and a woman dressed in red was playing it and singing at the same time. This was the mood I wanted to capture for my bar. Obviously my bar with its 28 square meters does not come close to the size of that room but the mood as such was what I wanted to recreate for my guests and my bar. Therefore, one can say it is an homage to that movie scene. The concept of the bar was always to serve cocktails. Back then I had a business partner for the first one-and-a-half years and we decided that the sole focus should be on cocktails. We do have a few wines but there is no food and no coffee on the menu for example. Looking back over the last ten years, it seems the concept was working out just fine and the bar has established itself on the night scene in the city. Over time, whisky became our main spirit and we offer over 250 bottles in this small bar. All our cocktails on the menu are our own creations, but of course you can order all the classics too. All the creative work takes place in our small lab upstairs, which used to be a flat, and we use all the latest knowhow to come up with new recipes. It is an investment, but it’s very important for our consistency towards the guest. Best Bars and Restaurants in Stuttgart Stuttgart Bars Recommendations🍸 Le Petit Coq🍸 Jigger & Spoon🍸 Immer Beer Herzen🍸 Ta Os Weinbar by Lausterer Stuttgart Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Goldener Adler🍸 Weinhaus Stetter The Future Personally, I am a big fan of good products, high quality but in a relaxed environment. This is very important for me. I don’t like this fake façade which you sometimes see in bars—when bartenders smile at you just because they have to, but drop the smile a second later when they walk away. In all the successful gastronomy businesses in Stuttgart, they are professional and deliver high quality in a relaxed space. I like that, this is also why I see our bar as somewhat of a living room. I wish even more places would follow suit with such a philosophy. In terms of techniques, a lot has already found its way into the bar but more is to come and we try to be on top of the game here—obviously always in a way that makes sense to us economically. Profile Year Born: 1980 Special skills: Ginger beer & bad jokes Free time: I have a small daughter and I’ll soon become a dad for the second time, plus we have a dog that needs attention, so my spare time is very limited. Having a family and a business fills up my time pretty much Bartender since: 2001 Biggest fail: I wanted to open a second bar but that turned out to be a mistake. Lots of energy and funds were wasted with that project. I’d rather focus on what I have now Most significant career step: Opening Schwarz Weiss Bar for sure Favorite cocktail: A whisky sour and a gimlet. Simple ingredients, focused on the spirit that allows variation. Just perfect. Check out Knud’s recipe: Jamaican Spaceballs Favorite bar: Of course I love Schwarz Weiss Bar, but if I have to mention another one, I was always a big fan of the Curtain Club in Berlin under the management of Arnd Henning Heissen Stuttgart: In three words: home, self-employment, traffic jam. Schwarz Weiss Bar Website Video Portrait of Knud Scheibelt Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Wolfgang Simm [...]
April 19, 2022Bartenders PortraitsShort video about the young entrepreneur Knud Scheibelt, owner of the famous Schwarz Weiss Bar in Stuttgart. Exclusively featured on The Pouring Tales. Check the following link to read the full portrait: Full Portrait [...]
January 27, 2022Bartenders PortraitsShort portrait from Boris Gröner, co-owner of the famous cocktail bar in Freiburg called “One Trick Pony”. Meet this talented and friendly bartender in a short portrait. Go to the written portrait for more information on Boris. Click the following link: Full Portrait [...]
January 27, 2022Bartenders PortraitsMy Life Originally, I come from a place called Rosswag, close to Stuttgart, and am now 44 years old. I have two kids, and together with Andreas Schöler I own the bar One Trick Pony in Freiburg. When I started university, I first moved to Mannheim to study economics, but did not like it too much, and so in 1999 I continued my studies in Freiburg with sports economics and geography. Like many others, I needed to fund my private life, and so right from the beginning of my studies I helped out in a place called Hemingway bar, which was the first cocktail bar in Freiburg at the time. All in all, I stayed fifteen years at Hemingway bar and right after I graduated I got a fulltime position as bar manager there. I liked gastronomy and the nightlife so much that even after uni I wanted to stay in this line of work. After four years in the fulltime position at Hemingway I heard about a new bar/restaurant/club project which really caught my attention. I was asked to run the place and was even able to bring in another person with me. At the time I was already working with Andy at the Hemingway bar so it seemed obvious for us to move to this new place together. Andy was working as bar manager while we were running Passage 46 together. After just one year though, due to some investor-related financial issues, the place went bankrupt. “I think if somebody would have asked me three months before signing the lease if I could imagine myself being a bar owner, I would have said NO WAY”Boris Gröner It was a very difficult time … but as luck had it, due to the bankruptcy we were free to take over One Trick Pony. That’s how I became a bar owner. I think if somebody would have asked me three months before signing the lease if I could imagine myself being a bar owner, I would have said “no way.” I knew how hard a business in gastronomy can be, but the decision ultimately was very spontaneous. At the end of the day though, it worked out very well and I am very content now to have taken this step in my career. One Trick Pony When the idea first got into our heads, we were thinking about how we could make our bar concept appealing to the people of Freiburg. What was missing in Freiburg? We realized that there was not one privately owned cocktail bar that lived up to our standards. We wanted to make high-quality cocktails, but at the same time the people from Freiburg—who are per se more into wine and beer—needed to feel attracted to what we do. We experimented a lot in the Hemingway bar, but the guests in Freiburg are not very experimental. There are no cocktail nerds here like in other cities. But the journey we started at the Hemingway bar could continue on at One Trick Pony. Shortly before the opening, we still did not have a name for our bar, but we had a poster on the outside for a while on which people could write name suggestions. Early in the process, somebody wrote “One Trick Pony,” and we thought: actually, we do “bar” very well and don’t want to be anything else, so the name fits perfectly. Moreover, pony is an old bar measurement which one often finds in old cocktail books. We make most of our essences that we use in our creative cocktail ourselves, and we try to be as local as possible. But in the end the bar should be for everybody. We did not want to overcomplicate things and set high prices, that was never the aim. It should all be fun and affordable. Over the years the bar has really made a name for itself and we are well-known now, at the least in German-speaking parts of Europe, which is something that makes us proud. In the meantime, we have opened our own spirits and drinks’ store called Chin Chin right above our bar, where we sell our own bottled cocktails. Best Bars and Restaurants in Freiburg Freiburg Bar Recommendations🍸 Au Contraire🍸 Trotte🍸 Alter Simon🍸 Hemingway Bar Freiburg Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Kuro Mori🍸 Schwabentörle🍸 Wolfshöhle🍸 Gioia mia🍸 Eichhalde🍸 La Finca The Future Generally, I believe that Germany’s bar scene is still a step behind the world’s bar culture movement. I would expect more trends to evolve from Berlin, especially if I compare it to cities like New York or London. For sure, Germany was never really a cocktail country, and while a lot has happened in the past years, there is still room for improvement. I see more and more bars being added to restaurants, which is an interesting development. At the same time, in the last five to ten years, many cooking influences found their way into bars. In Freiburg itself, it’s funny to say, but I think it would be beneficial for the development if there were even a few other competitive bars on the market. It would not hurt our business and at the same time it would raise more awareness and develop the bar culture in the right direction. Profile Year born: 1976 Special skills: I am superfast in loading and unloading dishwashers Free time: Family time, traveling and computer, mainly marketing and social media activities for One Trick Pony Bartender since: 1999 Biggest fail: Running Passage 46 and unfortunately going bankrupt Most significant career step: Opening One Trick Pony together with Andy Favourite cocktail: For sure the Daiquiri. Why? It’s very easy, with only three ingredients, and there is Rum in it—which I love. You can also use it to test bartenders quite well because you can still be creative with it. All in all, a good shaken Daiquiri always works Check out Boris’ cocktail recipe: Golden Gin Supreme Favourite bar: Difficult to say as it always depends on the mood. If I have to choose one, I would go for the Booze Bar in Berlin as I really like the people there. They are good friends. Freiburg: Freiburg in three words for me is “Prevent and Preserve.” New things are always looked on with a very critical eye. Like in so many cities, creativity is unfortunately inhibited due to bureaucratic rules and regulations. In Freiburg it might be because of its old history and the historical center or the still-strong influence of the church. One Trick Pony Website Boris Gröner’s video portrait Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Felix Groteloh [...]
January 10, 2022Bartenders PortraitsAbout Martin was born in 1981 in a town called Nitra, located in the southern part of Slovakia. Shortly after his birth, his family decided to move to the smaller town of Liptovský Mikuláš, where Martin studied at the local hotel academy. He fell in love with bartending during the first year of his studies, the moment he saw one of the bartenders throwing a bottle up behind his back. This image ingrained itself in Martin’s mind and he started to practice flair bartending right away. After a month of constant practice—or rather, demolishing and scratching the walls in his room with empty bottles—his hospitality teacher noticed him. This was the moment when everything started for him. For the next five years, Martin was chosen to represent his hotel academy in every classic or flair bartending competition. He got a job in the first cocktail bar in Slovakia in 1999. Later on, he managed to open a bar catering company together with some colleagues and that pushed the envelope too far for him: a young bartender who before had always worked extremely hard suddenly became too confident. The next few years of his life could best be described as living a “rock star lifestyle.” Luckily Martin realized that this was not who he was before it was too late and started looking for a different challenge. He moved to Ireland, even though he was actually a massive fan of the London bartending scene. Perhaps he underestimated himself and thought that he wasn’t good enough to make it in London, or perhaps it was his “build-from-scratch” nature that brought him to Ireland. There weren’t many cocktail bars in Ireland back in 2005, so it was easier for Martin to get a foot in the door. Not too easy, however, as he spoke no English when he arrived. So he started working in a nightclub, bussing, cleaning the bar in the morning, and occasionally working behind the stick. This situation changed rapidly once he proved his strong work ethic and showed off the bartending skills he had learned in Slovakia. A few years later, Martin opened a small restaurant and cocktail bar called Pedal Pushing Monkey in Dublin together with a good friend. They faced many obstacles over the course of their planning. It was very difficult and expensive to obtain a liquor license, set up a kitchen, and make sure the fire officer was satisfied enough to let them open their doors to the public. Operating a bar in Dublin works on a completely different level from anywhere else in the world and is only possible if you have very deep pockets and very strong nerves. For better or worse, their gig was over within a year and both returned to employee status with a massive smile on their faces. “It was brilliant to be a stress-free person once again,” he adds. Later on, the chance to be his own boss popped up again when Martin was offered the opportunity to run Delahunt’s upstairs bar. Delahunt The history of Delahunt’s building is fascinating, going back to 1906 when it was operated as an upscale grocery store in Dublin, famous for its geese, turkey, tea, wines, and whiskies. James Joyce even mentioned it in his Ulysses. The whole building is heritage-listed, underlining its great historical value. In the restaurant downstairs, one can find one of the longest and oldest bar counters ever made out of a single tree. The Sitting Room bar is located just above the restaurant on the first floor. It is a small and cozy bar with only forty seats, creating a relaxed atmosphere for the guests. Martin’s team is unusually small, comprising only himself and one co-worker on the floor. There is no bar-back or host at the Sitting Room, therefore Martin takes on both roles. The cocktail menu is small and seasonal, its design very simple, which gives Martin the opportunity to alter it as often as he wants. Some of the drinks are changed weekly, while the bestsellers are kept for a longer period. He loves supporting local producers, but will also use excellent international products that he believes in. His aim is to introduce lesser-known ingredients to his guests and he is very thankful to the owner of Delahunt for allowing him to run the bar the way he deems best. Inspiration Martin finds inspiration in everyday life. Being outside and moving his body gets his creative juices flowing. There are plenty of books, articles, or even restaurants around Delahunt that he can take inspiration from. According to him, if you just pay closer attention to your life in general, you will soon have enough new ideas to last you a lifetime. Favorite cocktail It all depends on the day and occasion. Martin does not usually drink during the day, but if there was an occasion to have a cocktail by lunchtime, then he would probably go for a low ABV one. Give him a vermouth and soda with a splash of amaro and your tip jar will be so thankful for it. Check out Martin’s recipes: Rhubarb Gimlet and Little Bird. Favorite bar He is a big fan of Tony Conigliaro’s or any of Ryan Chetiyawardana’s bars in London. The future of the bar world It wasn’t that long ago that people stopped serving disco drinks and started barrel-ageing and pre-batching drinks. Change happens so fast; one can spot centrifuges, rotovapors, and ultrasonic tanks almost everywhere these days, so Martin is hard-pressed to be able to predict future trends. Nevertheless, he strongly believes that the true meaning of hospitality will never vanish. Advice for opening a bar If you want to open a bar in Ireland, then make sure you have plenty of cash stashed in your account. Once you think you have enough, you will need to double that. Location is the key to success in business. Be true to yourself when thinking about your bar concept. Treat your staff with respect and look after them well. Do not employ your friends and make sure your toilets are spotless all the time. Dublin Dublin has become a cosmopolitan and modern city, hosting all kinds of people with different ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs. Dubliners like to dine out every single day, they like spending their income on experiences, which is why Dublin is entering a golden age of hospitality. Every street has a decent specialty coffee shop, restaurants and bars are opening up constantly. On the flipside, there is a glaring lack of service staff; the shortage of good chefs alone is at a crisis point. For someone wanting to work in hospitality, in this town you are spoiled for choice. Target in life Martin actually does not have any target he wants to achieve. He is happy where he is now but he would love to do the stage program at the Operation Dagger at some point (www.operationdagger.com). Best decision in life It is hard to name the best decision in his life. Martin makes decisions on a daily basis. He makes them and he does not look back. Martin concludes: “Why would I?”. Delahunt Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Steven McKenna [...]
January 2, 2022Bartenders PortraitsFrankfurt is not the first city that comes to mind when planing a trip to Germany nor is it when discussing cocktails. While it might not be the most interesting city to visit for the sights, for the cocktails it is absolutely worth a look. Over the last few years, this city has had some great new bars see the light of day. This is where you will find Armin Azadpour, a good friend of mine who moved from Zurich back to his hometown of Frankfurt some years ago. A bold move, but at the time he said to himself: “Everything will be hunky dory”. In the meantime he travels between Frankfurt and Zurich, since he opened a new place in Zurich called Lupo. About Armin was born in Germany, but his parents are from Iran. It took the thirty-two-year-old a while to discover his second passion after fashion: bartending. After leaving school, he started off his professional life in a completely different industry by doing an apprenticeship at American Apparel. He has always had an eye for beautiful things, which becomes evident as soon as you see him, but also when you walk into his bar. After his apprenticeship, he became a visual merchandiser for American Apparel in Germany and Zurich. Eventually he moved to Zurich, opened a new store, and became store manager. A year later, he did an internship with a tailor in Zurich to learn all the necessary skills to create and sew clothing. To get by he had to work nights, and that is how he first got into the hospitality industry at the club at renowned Zurich luxury hotel Baur au Lac, hosting the VIPs. Since it was his dream to become a fashion designer, he decided to move to London for two more internships and various courses at the famous art and design college Central Saint Martins. But Zurich was still on his mind, so in 2008 Armin moved back and started his own fashion line that included leather jackets and leather goods. It was a tough business to be in, but he was successful and managed to get into some of the best department stores abroad. His bestselling markets were Germany and Japan. As with all new and successful enterprises, there is the challenge of production keeping up with the growth of the business. Armin needed a large sum to pay for materials and production, and when one investor suddenly pulled out, Armin was left stranded, trying to organize everything on his own. While it had been a rewarding experience to have his own brand, at the same time it was a very lonely existence. He took a step back from his business for a while and thought back on the good times he had had in various bars in London while making money to finance his internships. Fate stepped in at the end of 2009 when a friend asked him if he wanted to help him open a new project called Rivington & Sons, inspired by the famous Schiller’s in New York. His friend wanted Armin to be in charge of the whole bar, attract people, and run the beverage program. He enjoyed the unexpected dive into the bartending business and somewhat lost interest in his fashion line. Two years later, another friend approached him and asked if he wanted to manage a new place called Grande Café & Bar, a highly frequented café and cocktail bar. Another three years on, in 2014, Armin’s entrepreneurial instincts kicked in again as he began dreaming about his own little project. Armin often traveled to Japan and knew about their culture of small cocktail bars and he had a vision of opening a small speakeasy in the very heart of Zurich. He opened that magical place together with Ivan, a talented young bartender he knew and while technically illegal, it was open for six months on Thursdays and Fridays only. “The Office” was always packed, very welcoming with a great atmosphere and a new drinks menu every week. Luckily, the neighbors and the police never found out about that little gem as it was hidden away in an office building, but it was a close call at times. Many bartenders would drop by after their shifts to end their evenings, which was a big honor for Armin. The nights usually only ended with the sun rising. In 2015, however, Armin felt it was time to move back home to Frankfurt to be with his partner. He had become a father in the meantime and wanted to be closer to his child. Filled with lots of energy and experience from the small bar project, it was time to open a permanent place. At the end of 2015 he opened Kinly Bar together with René Soffner. René was in charge of the drinks and Armin, with his design expertise, took care of the interior and the hospitality. It started out well, but soon the two developed different ideas about the future of the bar and Armin decided to leave Kinly. But he didn’t stray from the bar industry for long. He took a few months to source inspiration from bars all around Europe while traveling with his wife and daughter and at the end of 2016 he opened Hunky Dory. Hunky Dory Hunky Dory is situated in a modern building but when you walk in it feels like two worlds collide. Armin has seemingly visited every single flea and antiques market in Europe and collected all kinds of treasures from the past. You will want to leave with half the interior—it is just magnificent. He was lucky that right from the beginning the right crowd was drawn to his bar. He had already made a name for himself in Frankfurt, but the bar is located on the outer edges of a trendy area and is easily missed by foot traffic. People have to want to come to this place, as there is not much else going on around there at night. Hunky Dory has a very unique concept; Armin wants to get strangers who come to his bar to connect with each other. Along the wall opposite the bar counter are seven open phone booths that guests can use to call each other, invite one another for drinks, order drinks, or just have a chat. It creates a lively atmosphere and is geared towards introverts as well, Armin explains, since the communication is not face to face. Another important feature are the small vintage games ranging from table soccer to slot machines; all made to bring people together and break the ice. Inspiration Armin feels lucky to be able to travel the world, and it is also something that is very important to him. He tries to network whenever he can and visit other bar shows. In his time off, he also likes to visit the best antiques markets he can find. Everything he does in his free time inspires him to come up with new creations. In his opinion, any idea will work out if you put passion and energy into it. The fashion expert’s credo is, “Just do it.” Favorite cocktail He loves cognac, and therefore cognac cocktails are never far from his palate. His drink of choice at the moment is a pure Cognac Sazerac like they used to be made in New Orleans. He loves the creaminess, the richness, and how balanced yet full-bodied it is. The perfect drink to wind down after long day behind the bar. Check out Armin’s recipes: Sherlock Holmes, Equator’s Punch and Blood Diamond. Favorite bar Beaufort Bar at The Savoy in London. The future of the bar world Armin sees a trend towards sustainability. Bartenders are becoming more aware of reducing waste, including food and drink waste, but also plastics such as straws. What has long been just a buzzword without much substance has become a trend sparking actual change—with the added bonus that bars end up saving money. Another trend towards low ABV (Alcohol by Volume) drinks is taking place as more and more clients now ask for this type of cocktail. Advice for opening a bar Make something special and create and extraordinary concept which is new for your city. Look around at what others are doing and try to do it differently but never forget to deliver outstanding hospitality and drinks. Frankfurt The city is Armin’s home where he grew up. He loves his bar and bar community, which is like a big family to him. At the same time, Frankfurt has an international flair with the only real skyline in Germany. For its size, it has an outstanding bar scene. Best decision Having a child was the best thing that happened to him in his life. In a professional sense, becoming a bar owner has brought him the best life experience. Target in life Just being happy and enjoy life to its fullest. Hunky Dory Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Claudia Link [...]
August 4, 2021Bartenders PortraitsMy Life Growing up in a bakery, hard manual labor came somewhat naturally to me. My parents opened the business a year after my birth, so it was basically part of my DNA since day one. In many ways it is very similar to the hospitality industry. My parents were mainly working at night and sometimes also throughout the day. Christmas and the weekends were a very busy time; when everybody else was off, they were working the hardest. This influenced my entrepreneurial spirit immensely. Around the same time my father sold his bakery, I opened my bar l’Antiquaire. It is not a place for me to do business that brings in big money. It is a passion project for me that hopefully will pass the test of time. Who knows, maybe I will hand over this bar to my son one day. I am very old school when it comes to working in the bar. The roots run deep and true. But I have to first rewind a little to be able to tell the story of how I ended up a bartender. “Bartending is my hobby, passion and job at the same time”Marc Bonneton Like so many, I was out for money when I was in my teens and my parents put it simply when they said “work like we do and you will make money.” So I started waiting tables in a restaurant and switched from there into bartending. In 2003 I started at Vatel, a culinary school. My parents thought it was the right way to go, but it was difficult to reconcile school and work and I decided to dedicate all my time to the bar business. I told myself that bartending is a respectable job but owning a bar is much better, so at 23 I opened my first bar and left school behind. The bar still exists today and is called Soda Bar. Since then much has happened and today I am the owner of l’Antiquaire, the co-owner of l’officine and the creator and co-owner of Cockorico, a bottled cocktail company that I recently founded. I love my life. Bartending is my hobby, passion and job at the same time. Becoming an entrepreneur was in my blood and I did not really need schooling for that. I learned everything there is by pursuing my passion. L’Antiquaire When I opened l’Antiquaire in 2010, I was living upstairs where the Jockey Club is located now. On Fridays and Saturdays we open the upstairs bar. It has an elegant finish with lots of wooden elements, a classic jazz-era bar with a 1950s style. Downstairs we also have lots of wooden finishes and it has an elegant flair to it too, but it is more laid back and louder and we have a terrace which is open from March to October. A good place to feel at ease and cozy the whole evening. Best Bars and Restaurants in Lyon Lyon Bar Recommendations🍸 Soda Bar🍸 L’Officine🍸 Le Passage Lyon Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Restaurant Paul Bocuse🍸 Brasserie Georges🍸 Restaurant Thomas The Future The original business model of a cocktail bar that serves 95 percent cocktails is on the brink of extinction at the moment in my opinion. And due to COVID there will be even fewer cocktail bars in the future. Places like Tayer & Elementary could be a good model for the future: food and cocktails, but not as formal as a restaurant. I also think we will move towards more sustainable and eco-friendlier bars. Profile Year Born: 1983 Special Skills: Good generalist and entrepreneur—consistent and persevering. Free Time: Being with my friends, drinking good spirits and smoking some cigars, besides boxing, running, an interest in cars and entrepreneurship. Bartender Since: 2002 Biggest Fail: Doing what I don’t know and opening a restaurant. Most Significant Career Step: Winning Bacardi Legacy Favourite Cocktail: Negroni / Old Fashioned—lots of taste and almost no dilution. A classic and a true cocktail: spirit, bitter, water, sugar. Check out Marc’s cocktail recipe: Marco’s Bacardi Fizz Favourite Bar: Milk & Honey in NYC will always be my best experience. I was younger, new to bartending, and easy to impress but this bar has stayed in my memory since. Lyon: A small city that wants to look big. L’Antiquaire Website Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©The Pouring Tales [...]
May 12, 2021Bartenders PortraitsMy Life I grew up in a small town called Stadskanaal in the province of Groningen—up in the north of the Netherlands. I’m the oldest of three kids and we had a wonderful childhood. It was also here where I took my first steps in the hospitality industry, working as a dishwasher in a family-owned restaurant. I was 14 years old at the time and continued to work there on and off during weekends up until I was 17. Actually, after moving up the ranks to kitchen help and then waiter, I eventually became a bartender. When I turned 17, it was time to move to the “big city”—Groningen—which had me under its spell (read, more bars, girls, etc.). I studied International Hospitality Management at the local hotel school and gained work experience alongside my studies in various hospitality-related businesses. After spending a year in South Africa finalizing my International Bachelor’s degree and wines certificate, I moved to Brussels where I got a job as assistant F&B manager. By then my interest in the cocktail and bartending culture had started to truly blossom and I didn’t have to think twice when the manager of The Dominican Design Hotel in Brussels offered me a job as a bar manager. Four fantastic years followed before it was time for me to move on and look for the next level within the world of cocktailian possibilities. “I did miss the “true bar life” and working with a team of bartenders….Lennart Deddens I took chef Yves Mattagne up on his offer to become head bartender for his businesses, enticed by the possibility to co-create the most extraordinary F&B stuff with his chefs, who were all working at a three-star Michelin level. It was a very educational experience to work with chefs and creative masterminds of this calibre, but I did miss the “true bar life” and working with a team of bartenders as I was the only one within Yves’ group. That’s why I took the opportunity to return “home,” so to speak, in 2013 and set up the cocktail bar and in-house distillery at a place called Mr. Mofongo—a famous restaurant in Groningen which had the ambition to significantly expand by adding a fully new guest experience to their concept. For me this was a great way to dive deeper into the world of distillation and start creating my cocktail recipes directly from the source: the base spirit. “The Stockroom adventure in March of 2019, became the first true speakeasy cocktail bar in the city of Groningen”.Lennart Deddens I left Mr. Mofongo after four years to become brand ambassador for Hooghoudt Distillers, focusing primarily on the Genever category. And to this day, I’m still promoting Holland’s most special spirit wherever and whenever I can. Hooghoudt, like many other brands, is also a client of Boilermaker, the brand activation agency for premium spirits and beer brands that I started with my associate and best friend Peter Torenbosch in 2017. Over the years it has grown into a full-service business. In 2019 the evolution of our company gained momentum with the realization of two hospitality concepts. One was the opening of BOEL, a street food restaurant combined with eight pétanque lanes and, naturally, a very nice bar. The other one, The Stockroom adventure in March of that year, became the first true speakeasy cocktail bar in the city of Groningen. We often call The Stockroom the pearl or the pride and joy of what has become The Boilermaker Group today, especially after being awarded Best New Cocktail Bar of the Netherlands by Entree Magazine only a few months after opening our doors. My private life is just as busy as my professional one, since my wife Linda owns a fitness studio especially for women and we’ve got two beautiful and lively boys called Noam (three years) and Louen (four months). Of course, without a doubt, they are my true pride and joy. The Stockroom During a cocktail training at Hooghoudt distillers I met Erik Beeftink, who had the brilliant plan to open Groningen’s first true speakeasy cocktail bar and found the perfect location for it—a former vinyl record store, transformed into a dry storage room for the restaurant next door. The Stockroom was born and we managed to create a place like no other. At The Stockroom you are welcomed with open arms and immersed in an exceptional drinking experience that pays homage to the bygone speakeasy era. We serve the finest drinks using only top-quality products. Classic cocktails like in the Roaring 20s, but given a seasonal twist. Expect high-quality service and hospitality from our talented bartenders who understand how to deliver an unforgettable experience; they take pride in and enjoy their experimentation with locally grown ingredients and homemade bitters and liquors. Best Bars and Restaurants in Groningen Groningen Bars & Nightlife Recommendations🍸 Boel🍸 Mr. Mofongo🍸 Bar 1672🍸 Block & Barrels🍸 EM2🍸 Warhol🍸 Pintelier🍸 Uurwerker Groningen Restaurant Recommendations🍸 Gustatio🍸 Vive la Vie🍸 Eetwaar🍸 Bistro Boys🍸 Het Pomphuis🍸 Hanasato🍸 Onder de Linden🍸 Florentin🍸 Bistro ‘t Gerecht The Future The bar industry will evolve greatly over the coming years. How and what exactly will happen is hard to predict, but it’s clear that we need to protect ourselves better for future pandemics like Covid-19. Trends and developments which were already happening before will and must be taken more seriously, such as sustainability, for example, making use of circular energy sources, but also working with local producers and craft products. I expect bars to keep furthering ready-to-drink concepts for home use and in general be more aware of sustainable ways of operating a bar concept. That said, for the short term we will be mainly focusing on recovering from the corona virus pandemic as much as possible and have our bars and teams up and running again. Interaction with our team and our guests is what we’ve dearly missed the last few months and it’s what we live for. Profile Year born: 1984 Special skills: I believe I am pretty good at inspiring people and lifting the spirits of my team and others, “simply” by conveying my own passion, knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm. Besides, I’m always thinking of ways to improve on what we have and am constantly looking for other interesting opportunities to work on and eventually bring to life within our existing concepts. Free time: Spending time with my wife and two sons / fitness / tennis / cooking for family and friends / listening to music Bartender since: 2002 Biggest fail: At The Stockroom we have a wooden ladder to get to the top shelves of the back bar. Clumsy as I sometimes can be, I tend to drop a bottle once in a while when making my way up and down. Guests always enjoy a good laugh when watching me struggle. Most significant career step: Starting my own business in 2016. The adventure of combining the experience everyone from our team has gained over the years into successful concepts. Favourite cocktail: A Martinez twist with Genever. Because the Martinez is the godfather of the dry martini, made with Holland gin, actually Genever. Apart from the fact that it’s just an awesome cocktail, combining a slightly bitter and sweet flavor palate, it’s a spirit-forward cocktail. Check out Lennart’s cocktail recipe: The Stockroom Martinez. Favourite bar: Jiggers in Ghent, Belgium. You’ll find some of the very best bartenders there. Their knowledge of cocktails and ingredients is outstanding—always seasonal and always with a local twist. Not to mention their service level and awesome bar design. Besides, owner Olivier Jacobs has been a true inspiration during my early cocktailian days. Groningen: Groningen means home to me. The best and officially the “happiest” city in the Netherlands! Most probably because there’s no curfew for bars and restaurants. 🙂 Furthermore it’s the home base from which our businesses operate, the biggest city in the north of the Netherlands (200k+ inhabitants) with a nice mix of young and old people. The Stockroom Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©The Stockroom [...]
March 4, 2021Bartenders PortraitsMy final exam for my certificate of advanced studies in Corporate Storytelling & Brand Journalism was a short movie. My aim was to bring a bartender portrait from written text to video format and during the time of corona I focused on a talented bartender from Zurich. Rodrigo Zimmermann who used to run a small place called “Spitz” bar, then opened his pop-up place at Hotel Greulich just to be closed down my a further lockdown and is now moving to a new bar which opens in April 2021 at Bridge,  a new food market close to the main train station in Zurich. Enjoy the short video. Cheers! [...]
January 29, 2021Bartenders PortraitsEverybody who has been to Tel Aviv knows that you are in for a treat when it comes to culinary delights. It is a melting pot of various cuisines from all around the world. The bar scene is not too far behind and has developed a lot over the last few years. It has been a few years since I my last – and first – visit to Imperial Craft. Last time, I spent many boozy nights in this hidden gem located inside a shady hotel not too far from the beach. This is where I met Gilad Livnat, one of the owners of Imperial Craft. About Gilad was born and raised in Tel Aviv. Now thirty-four years old, his fate was already decided when he was still a boy. He grew up watching his father and grandfather run the family-owned hotel and restaurant after coming home from school. He would usually do his homework while sitting at the bar. He felt very comfortable in these surroundings, and this upbringing shaped his future. Eventually, the restaurant closed and only the Imperial Hotel remained. When Gilad reached his teen years, it was time for his compulsory military service. Afterwards, he started working as a bartender in Tel Aviv. He worked in various places for many years until he became a bar manager in 2010. In 2013 it was time for Gilad to run his own place, and he decided together with his partners—his father David Livnat, and his friend Bar Shira, who was Gilad’s former bar manager in a place called 223, and Dror Alterovich, who was a regular at 223—to open the Imperial Craft Cocktail Bar in the family-owned hotel. His entrepreneurial spirit awoke and just two years later they opened La Otra, a Mexican- Caribbean cocktail bar which is located close to Imperial Craft in the same location as his father’s old restaurant. Imperial Craft Cocktail Bar had become quite well-known by then, not only in Israel, but around the world, as it was ranked among the top 50 cocktail bars worldwide. Recently Gilad and his partners have opened a smaller Imperial franchise called Imperial Red, located in the luxury Cramim Resort & Spa near Jerusalem. Gilad is now married and has recently become a father. Imperial Craft Cocktail Bar Imperial Craft is something of an insider tip. Hidden from view, you have to walk into the Imperial Hotel and go through a small door to the right that leads to this gem. The magic happens behind the counter, so if you are lucky enough, grab a seat there. There are a few tables as well, but the bar in total is not big. It is a small, intimate, and cozy place. The emphasis is on friendly staff and personal service for every guest. There is an interesting menu that changes from time to time and helps people choose a cocktail according to general criteria such as woody, boozy, fruity, etc. This bar is not for those seeking a classic cocktail, since none can be found on the menu, but for novices the knowledgeable bartenders are happy to help make a decision. As the name already implies, the bar is inspired by the Imperialist era, specifically by a particular colonial officers’ bar located in Vietnam. Inspiration Whenever he gets the chance, Gilad travels and learns about new cultures. He likes to just talk to the people around him when he eats or drinks in a restaurant. Sometimes these conversations lead to him going out and partying with them. He likes to explore new places, and trying typical foods and drinks from other cultures is a big source of new ideas for him. Knowing the history of things, where they come from, and how they evolved also provides him with inspiration. After all, he studied history at university. This is why these experiences form the basis for his creativity behind the counter. Favorite cocktail Gilad’s favorite cocktail is a classic Americano. It is perfect in any kind of climate, and he prefers low ABV drinks in general. His all-time favorite cocktail on the Imperial menu is the Rosita Sour, made from 3 cl Martini Bitter, 3 cl red vermouth, 3 cl tequila blanco, 3 cl fresh lemon juice, and 2 cl of simple syrup. Check out Gilad’s cocktail recipe: Don Juan. Favorite bar Broken Shaker in Miami The future of the bar world Gilad imagines a more back-to-basics movement and is looking forward to more simplicity and a greater focus on excellent hospitality. Advice for opening a bar Make sure to choose the right partners and really love what you do. Believe in your vision, but at the same time be open for outside criticism – especially from educated guests. Ego is your worst enemy. Craziest customer experience Gilad was lucky to host Quentin Tarantino a few times in his bar. That alone was crazy enough. Tel Aviv He believes that Tel Aviv is one of the best cities in the world to eat and drink in. There is amazing food, drinks, and parties at all hours of the day and night. Tel Aviv usually has good weather and it is located on the coast—what more could you want? Last but not least, he calls it home. Best decision Marrying his wife. Target in life Be happy! There is a famous John Lennon quote that goes: “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” Imperial Craft Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Matthew Gorodiski [...]
September 26, 2020Bartenders PortraitsAbout Julia was born and raised in Japan. Already in her youth, she was exposed to the hospitality industry, working part-time in a bagel shop and a restaurant that also had a small bar. After graduating from high school, she moved to the United States to attend Cornell University. Alongside her studies in interior architecture and design, she worked for Cornell Catering and various other restaurants and bars. Eventually she decided not to continue pursuing her degree in design, but instead focus on hospitality full-time—bartending, specifically. One of the places she worked at while living in Ithaca was Rulloff’s Restaurant and Bar. She started out as a server/cocktail waitress, then became a bar-back, and finally worked her way up to bartender. This was her introduction to the fast-paced world of bartending and making mixed drinks. At the time, she was also a bartender for Cornell Catering and worked many of the events for the university’s faculties and trustees. After an encounter with a guest who had very particular remarks on how to do his Manhattan and how she used a jigger, Julia started to read and learn more about “The Classics.” During a visit home to Japan she walked into a bar in Kobe, where she met a barman who was very meticulous about his ice. He would hand-chip perfect spheres of ice for even the simplest highballs. He did not discriminate against simple things, but rather made them the best that they could possibly be. This inspired her immensely, as Japanese bartending is very different from American or European. Attention to detail is key: ingredients, tools, the way the bartender moves, the philosophy of bartending, the level of hospitality, it all builds to form one unit and melts together into one well-rounded experience that is unparalleled in this world. Upon returning to the United States, Julia moved to Baltimore. She spent two years there, working not only in bars but also in kitchens for a while, in order to gain more experience in that field. One of the bars she called home in Baltimore, Rye Craft Cocktails, opened a second venue called Willow, and she was given the opportunity to develop its bar program. Soon, however, it was time for her to move on again. Julia wanted to push herself and continue her education. A conversation with a guest led her to apply for an internship at The Aviary, an internationally recognized bar located in Chicago. They were one of the first bars to adopt what Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, and Grant Achatz, owner of The Aviary, were doing in the world of fine dining and adapt it for the cocktail scene. Achatz, who is an American trailblazer in progressive cuisine and a proponent of innovative dining, also runs various critically acclaimed restaurants in Chicago. Among all the smoke, liquid nitrogen, and hydrocolloids, The Office—The Aviary’s speakeasy specializing in cocktails and rare spirits—was what pulled Julia in. This was the bar she envisioned herself working behind. She realized, though, that first there would be much more to learn on the line at The Aviary and accepted a position as a “bar chef.” After some time, Julia was working in both The Aviary and The Office, and worked her way up to head bartender. She earned her spurs, working for Achatz for two years, developing cocktails, training staff, and running the line. Eventually, though, it was time for her to move on again and to show the rest of the world what she had learned. When she put in her notice at The Aviary, she had no concrete plans for the future. Soon enough, though, she received a call from Jack McGarry, owner of The Dead Rabbit in New York City, asking if she would be interested in joining a new project set to open in Chicago: GreenRiver. She accepted and worked there from 2015 to 2017. In that time, Julia developed the opening menu of thirty-two cocktails with Jack McGarry. She also spearheaded the development of the second menu, a selection of thirty-two cocktails and eight spiritfrees, together with the bartending team, launching it in the fall of 2016. GreenRiver was awarded a Michelin star but closed down in 2018. The spiritfrees, in particular, were important for guests, some of whom preferred to enjoy the incredible quality of the chef’s food without drinking alcohol. When Julia finally left GreenRiver, she intended to travel, explore, and learn as much as possible. At first, she started doing consulting work for a company called Menu Collective in Chicago. She developed cocktails for the first Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle, which for the first time incorporated a cocktail bar into their program. There will only be a few of these around the world. The Roastery in Milan launched in September 2018, followed by branches in Tokyo, New York, and Shanghai, with one in Chicago set to open soon. Julia also developed about twenty spiritfree tea-based drinks which are to be featured across a number of different locations. Another project that Julia took on in 2017 was to develop the world’s first mezcal-based liqueur. Stephen Torres of the magazine Bill of Fare enlisted her for this task. His vision was to have a mezcal liqueur that was inspired by his grand-mother Maria’s mole recipe. Julia only received the ingredient list of the mole—the rest is kept a secret! After many trips to Mexico City and Oaxaca, and a great number of taste tests, the liqueur has been available since November 2018 and is called Criollo de Oaxaca. In 2017, Julia also published a manifesto on spiritfrees—a move away from the word “mocktail” and a movement towards inclusivity at bars for those who do not drink alcohol. This opened up an opportunity for her to speak at the Brooklyn Bar Convent and Tales of the Cocktail in 2018. In November 2017 Julia married bartender and photographer Sammy Faze and took this as a chance to explore her roots. They celebrated their wedding with only ten guests in Japan. Afterwards she started spending a lot of time in Japan. She went on one very insightful trip, in particular, with the Shiga Prefecture government and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) to explore the tea-growing region of Omi in Shiga (close to Kyoto). Seeing their recent projects in the region deeply inspired Julia and she felt it was time to put all these experiences together and create her own bar. And thus, Kumiko was born. Kumiko The influence of Julia’s heritage runs deep through the heart of Kumiko. While she understands that a Japanese bar outside Japan will never be a Japanese bar per se, the core values that she wants to share and develop together with the team all center around Japanese principles and practices. The team is comprised of about twenty people, split between service and kitchen staff. There are eight seats at the bar and twenty-two seats at various tables. Both food and drinks are served with an emphasis on enjoying the two in combination. It is a school, playground, and home for the creative minds working there. Julia shares all that she has learned in her life about good communication, hospitality, and how to mix a drink with her team. These skills come from diverse sources: her experiences in Japan, her mother, her co-workers at the small bagel shop in a high-end department store, as well as from a small bar in Kobe. It is because of their intensive training in the fundamentals of their craft that the team is able to accommodate the guests’ desires while still staying true to the Kumiko way: an unwavering commitment to detail, with a heart for hospitality, and a desire to be the best they can be in each moment. For all the bars that Julia has patronized and worked at throughout her career, the one thing that stands out to her about Japanese bars is the way they make you feel: totally and perfectly taken care of. The awareness of the bartenders as they work behind the bar, and their skill to orchestrate every moment without being overbearing is an art form just as exquisite as the precision with which they handle spirit, jigger, glass, and ice. The name Kumiko comes from a Japanese technique performed by master woodworkers to create patterns with intricately cut pieces of wood. Mastery of this displays true craftsmanship, attention to detail, and dedication. This bar, therefore, is an homage to craftspeople around the world. Inspiration For Julia, it is all about a taste or flavor when she is inspired to develop a new creation. She chooses one flavor to start with and then works in and around it. It is less a spirit-centered process, rather a flavor- and color-focused one. Julia’s knowledge about the culinary world weaves its way into the process as well. She also reflects on the specific kinds of people for whom she creates a drink. This technique was put to the test once before, when she was working at The Office and would create a menu based on people and the conversations she had with them, or even on a piece of clothing they were wearing. For Valentine’s Day, as a unique challenge and creative menu, she even took the Myers-Briggs personality test as a basis for her conversation-enhanced, individual-based creations. Favorite cocktail A balanced cocktail. However, if she had to give that cocktail a name, Julia says, the classic Old Fashioned, as for so many others, is on top of her list. This cocktail that basically consists of water, sugar, bitters, and spirit allows you to play with all these components, which are very simple on the one hand, but also very diverse on the other. They allow substitutions of any kind and the drink often works with a vast range of sweeteners, bitter components, and spirits. The way Julia talks about this cocktail shows with how much depth she thinks about cocktails in general: the single components, how they are put together, what they do to a cocktail, how they appear visually, but also how they react on the palate. It bears a close resemblance to the concoction she made for me when I was there. I have rarely seen this much attention to detail and thought go into a cocktail. An enthusiast like me is instantly hooked, and as one starts to muse over a simple cocktail for a long time, it becomes so much more than just a drink. Check out Julia’s cocktail recipe: Highball No. 1. Favorite bar Billy Sunday in Chicago. The future of the bar world Bartenders all around the world are getting better at what they do. More information is available, and people are more motivated than ever to try something new. Julia notes that the guests have also become more knowledgeable, more experimental, and more curious about new ideas. This, in turn, pushes the bartenders to be even better. As a consequence, quality is soaring all over the world. Julia feels that as the demand for amazing service and quality increases, so will the respect and appreciation for this art. Following this, the industry will be much more guest-driven, focusing on their wants and needs more than just odd ingredients, smoke and mirrors. Advice for opening a bar One needs to know the identity of the bar, being very clear what it is intended to represent. It should be clear what the demographic of the guests will be. What the mission of the bar is, is another vital aspect. Before GreenRiver opened, there was much mystique surrounding the project. Many people, even the press were misinformed, under the impression that GreenRiver was to be an Irish Pub, which could not be further from the truth. Craziest customer experience It is exciting to see how a relationship formed with a guest can lead to more than just an exchange of money for goods. A man who went by the name “The Pirate,” wearing a cowboy hat and boots would visit the bar in Baltimore regularly to see Julia. He lived on a boat in the Marina and other than that, did not share much about himself. For weeks he would consistently come to the bar, ask for Jose Cuervo Gold, be upset when it wasn’t carried, and settle with “whatever.” After some time and several conversations, he started to open up to Julia a little bit more. She was able to let him know when he crossed lines in speaking to the staff or other guests, and gradually he began to ask for recommendations of other tequilas to sip on. Cuervo led to Herradura, which led to his new found favourite, Chinaco Anejo. There was a point when he invited Julia and a couple of the other bartenders to join him and some friends on a cruise to Miami. This story would truly be crazy and much longer if Julia had agreed. But suffice to say, it is crazy how much a bartender can impact another person’s life. Chicago Chicago was the first city in the United States where Julia felt at home. She loves the city and she feels very connected to the people and the food and beverage culture there. The bar world is big, but at the same time it is a tightly knit community, and she is happy to be a part of this big family. Target in life She would like to own a bar herself one day and I have not doubt that with her talent and age she will achieve this goal. At the same time, she would like to teach more. Make herself available to new people that want to pursue a bartender career. She would love to serve as a mentor for them. Best decision in life so far Working at the Aviary was a game changer for her. It was not an easy decision to move to Chicago, and it was certainly not an easy to work in such an intense environment; but, it broadened her horizons immensely. Leaving The Aviary was a big leap of faith in herself and her abilities. She has grown a lot in this city and has come to put down roots. I wish her lots of success for her future adventures in the cocktail world. Kumiko Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: Cocktails ©Kailley Lindman Interior & Portraits ©Sammy Faze [...]
May 27, 2020Bartenders PortraitsAbout Josh was born in 1981 in San Francisco and is a proud City native. He played a lot of sports when he was young and got into college in Los Angeles as a track and field recruit, running the 400m, 4x400m relay, and the 400m hurdles. He had already participated in competitions from an early age, but got injured shortly after he started college. He tore a ligament in his knee, which—coinciding with a time of over indulgence—put an end to his athletic ambitions. At the age of nineteen, Josh started a summer job as a bar back, lying about his age to get the job. It was during those couple months that he caught the bartending bug. The following summer, still under twenty-one, he worked as a host in a restaurant and found that he really enjoyed working in the hospitality industry. One year passed and the manager of the restaurant he had worked for the year before moved to a new restaurant. When Josh approached him for a job, the manager asked if he was officially twenty-one now. Josh confirmed that he was indeed of legal age now, and so the manager told him that his day bartender had just left and Josh would be the new one. He could start the next day and work full-time. The place was called Postrio, and it was a famous restaurant in San Francisco. This combination of college, bartending, and an excessive lifestyle went on for three years until Josh moved back to San Francisco and entered an in-patient substance abuse treatment facility. Josh has been sober since November 14th, 2003. Josh was accepted as a transfer student to the University of San Francisco. He felt like a new person entirely and excelled at school, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with degrees in Politics and Legal Studies with plans to become a lawyer or politician. He spent two-and-a-half years at USF, working nights and weekends as a bartender in various places. For him, it was the best decision to get back into bartending after becoming sober, not because it gave him a start in his career, but because it aided his transition back into the social world and helped overcome certain social anxieties that came along with the living life as a young sober person. After Josh graduated from USF, he went to France for ten months. Something he had always wanted to do. While there, he applied for Law School in the US, but was denied. He returned home devastated and feeling like he had failed at everything, but he said to himself, “At least I know how to bartend.” And so Josh kept his spirit up and continued to work behind the bar, with the idea to reapply the next year. A year went by but he did not send off his application. Another year went by, and again, he did not apply. That was in 2006, when the new cocktail renaissance took full swing. Between 2006 and 2009 Josh was working here and there, won competitions, was a part-time brand ambassador, and in 2009 he founded The Bon Vivants, a cocktail, hospitality, marketing, and design agency. In January of 2013 Trick Dog opened its doors. Josh’s idea was to build a business that adds social value and is committed to social causes—as is evident from many of his activities today. Trick Dog Trick Dog quickly became well-known for their menus, the interior design and concept. Tales of the Cocktail even awarded them the prize for best menu twice. For one menu, they produced a cookbook together with local chefs where each drink represents a different approach or philosophy on cuisine from each restaurant. This menu, released in 2018, earned them their second win at Tales of the Cocktail. Trick Dog is very much associated with their menus, and every six months, they are completely reworked by the team. Bon Vivants Hospitality is very philanthropic. The group started the Bon Vivants Scholarship to cover the services of non-profit ScholarMatch for one student each year who is first generation to college and the child of parents in hospitality. They also hold a lot of fundraising events—with their regular menus as well as specials like Pig & Punch, which serves barbecue and punch with all proceeds benefiting KIPP Public Charter Schools. All info can be found on Bon Vivants’ website. Pig & Punch gained Trick Dog widespread renown. It was launched for the first time at Tales of the Cocktail. Trick Dog is a small neighborhood bar. Downstairs fits about fifty between standing and bar stools and has three mixing stations. Upstairs, guests must enjoy dinner in addition to their cocktails, and seats up to forty more guests. The kitchen is geared towards creative bar food that is easy to share. The signature dish is called Trick Dog: a rectangular shaped burger on an hot dog bun. Inspiration Inspiration, for Josh, is having a connection to his heart and soul. Anything that he has created and aims to create needs to come from his heart and he needs to believe in it. He wants his projects to be meaningful and close to the community, and he wants to connect the worlds of antiques and arts with a modern venue. For him, a place needs to feel authentic and genuine, which is why he doesn’t just want to copy a concept. It needs a personal, human touch. Favorite cocktail Lately, Josh likes to drink a non-alcoholic version of the original Trick Dog aperitif, which consists of Seedlip, non-alcoholic sherry, and non-alcoholic vermouth made at Trick Dog. It’s simply called Non-Alcoholic Trick Dog Aperitif. Check out Josh’s cocktail recipes: Trick Dog Aperitif and Coppa di Fiori Favorite bar Trick Dog. There is no place he feels more at home than in this bar. The future of the bar world Josh hopes that the bar industry will reach a good level of sustainability, and that businesses stay connected to the people who made them. He thinks that the risk profile and financial implications of opening hospitality projects is growing to too high, and if that continues, it will suck the soul out of the industry. He hopes that through sustainability, authentic places with soul can survive and coexist. This is true especially in his hometown of San Francisco, but New York faces the same kind of issues. It is not a climate where people are encouraged to open new businesses due to the current situation. Last year, more restaurants closed down than opened in San Francisco. San Francisco Josh likes San Francisco because of what it is day by day, rather than what it was yesterday. He is very proud to be a native of The City. He has a love for this place that prevails over San Francisco’s current situation. To him, it is simply beautiful and feels like a village. Goal in life Good health, happiness, and family. His businesses have brought him a lot of happiness and they provide for him and many others. He does not want work to feel like work. Josh wants to see the world, experience other cultures, and at some point in his life he wants to retire and become a buyer and seller of vintage items. Best decision To get sober Trick Dog Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Interior Images: ©Trick Dog [...]
March 21, 2020Bartenders PortraitsAbout Daniele was born in 1984 in Florence. His mother is from Tuscany and his father was born in Southern Italy. He has one brother, who was also a bartender but has changed his profession in the meantime. After finishing school, Daniele studied art history in his hometown and got into bartending to support his student life. He started out in a small Italian snack bar, which served coffee and sandwiches and did very few cocktails. A few Negroni’s a day or a Spritz was all he made in this small place called Migliorni. He loved the job though and wanted to explore what it means to do this line of work full time, moving closer to the center of Florence and quitting his studies completely as a result. Daniele then did stints at Rivalta Café, FUK, and Golden View Open Bar. During that time, he met Lucca Picchi—a famous Italian bartender from Florence—while attending a course at a bartender school to deepen his knowledge of mixology. After the first course he did with Lucca, Daniele was approached by Lucca and asked if he would also consider teaching at AIBES (Italian Barguild). Lucca was like a mentor to Daniele, and after teaching at AIBES, he also went on to teach classes at Shaker Club. In summer 2016 he was offered a bar manager position at the newly opened Rasputin and took the opportunity to run the most famous cocktail bar in Florence—which he continues to do today. At present, Daniele only teaches special whisky classes at a local hospitality college. He is fully dedicated to his bar manager position at Rasputin. Rasputin Rasputin is THE secret cocktail bar in Florence. Its focus lies on classic cocktail with a twist. The bar has forty-five seats and there is a strict seating-only policy. The crowd is made up of roughly 50 percent tourists and 50 percent locals. It is open every day from 8 pm until 2 am. The team consists of only five bartenders and they all function as waiters too. They rotate and by doing so can go into detail with guests in regards to their tastes and preferences. The menu changes twice a year; its selection consists of twenty-eight cocktails divided into seven sections—each dedicated to one deadly sin. Another focus of the bar is its broad selection of over 150 whiskies. Inspiration Daniele normally starts out with a concept. For Jiro (see the cocktail recipes), for example, he saw the documentary Jiro, Dreams of Sushi and wanted to create an homage to the revered sushi chef Jiro Ono. On other occasions, he takes one interesting ingredient and starts from there. Classics are always a good source of inspiration, since today most cocktails derive from a classic recipe. Food and travel provide further inspiration. At the moment, Daniele is delving into the Szechuan kitchen—not actually cooking, but solely studying it. Florence is a very international city and despite the outstanding Italian cuisine, one can find excellent ethnical restaurants all over the city. Favorite cocktail Daniele usually drinks whisky neat, but for the sake of mentioning a cocktail here, it is easy to choose—a classic Dry Martini is a drink that is perfect at any time of the day. Why is it his favorite cocktail? The answer is simple: because Martini is Martini. Check out Daniele’s recipes: Even Angels Like Whisky and Dedicated to Jiro Favorite bar Benfiddich in Tokyo. Its classic hospitality combined with Japanese bartending is why Daniele loves it so much. It is very intimate—there is no menu and the space is very small. The cocktails are modern and the bartenders dress in white jackets. A concept like this is only possible in small Japanese Bars. The future of the bar world The trending of different cocktail styles moves in a cycle. Five years ago, Hanky Panky and Aviation were very “en vogue,” but now they no longer are. Cocktails come and go, even the classic ones. The drinks are important and they change, but hospitality doesn’t. The quality of bars in terms of hospitality will hopefully improve over the next years. Bars should focus more on this important element. Craziest customer experience It is a curious experience rather than a crazy one. At one point the sink in the restroom was clogged and the bar team thought that somebody must have thrown up into it. Which was indeed the case, but what they found was that one guest had apparently been eating a whole candle. Until today, nobody is sure why the guest did it, but the team thinks it was a Japanese tourist who got terribly drunk. Florence Florence is Daniele’s home. He is very happy here, since only five to six years ago, it would not have been possible to work in a place like Rasputin due to the high cost of living in the city. Moreover, the local bartenders support each other as they have founded a group. Instead of being rivals, they are more like a big family of friends helping each other out. Goal in life Daniele has no greater goals in life. He loves his work, and making people happy is his goal. He wishes to taste all the whiskies in the world, but that is more of a dream than a goal. Best decision Becoming a bartender. Daniele never regretted to quit his studies. His only regret is that he doesn’t play his bass guitar anymore. Rasputin Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Giovanni Rasoti [...]
February 20, 2020Bartenders PortraitsAbout Lorena was born in 1991 in a small Bavarian city called Eichstädt. Her first contact with bartending took place when she was fifteen years old and was part of a group who ran a bar at the city’s annual festival. In 2010 she went to Halle to study biology. It was Lorena’s wish to keep working in bars alongside her studies, so her first six months’ stint was at a music bar in Halle called Flower Power. She was only working nights, which was tiring, and the bar mainly served beer, shots, and a Cuba Libre here and there. The next stop was a restaurant and bar called The One. They served the odd cocktail like Sex on the Beach, but there was not much creativity involved—it was mainly food, milkshakes, and long drinks. Lorena liked being in the hospitality industry, and bar keeping became more and more of a passion. The world of gastronomy was always more important to her than her studies, but she finished her Bachelor’s degree nonetheless and in 2014 moved to Hamburg. Halle had become too small and too boring. Hamburg was much bigger and she did not know anybody there—exactly what Lorena was after. She felt—a feeling at least partly induced by her parents—that one could not (or should not) make a decent living by bartending full-time. She started a research position with a small foundation, but it was poorly paid work and she did not enjoy it very much. Therefore, she started to study again, as she always wanted to learn Italian and it also allowed her to go back to bartending. Lorena started to work at Café Kostbar and stayed there for three years. Besides the rather cozy Café Kostbar she also worked events at Festplatz Nord as she needed the fast, high-volume party life and, as she admits, is pretty fond of drunk people. During these three years in the city, she began drinking quality cocktails as her network of bartender friends grew bigger and bigger. Her Bachelor’s degree in Italian ended in 2017 and she decided to move to Padua for six months. During that stay, she spent a lot of time reading and learning about bars, and she often visited a place called Barcode, where she regularly spent most of her savings to imbibe. When Lorena returned to Hamburg, Café Kostbar was no longer enough for her. She started at a placed called Familieneck, but it was not a creative enough environment for her and she felt too tightly controlled. After only six months she left. Through Diageo she was able to take a two-and-a-half-months-long theory course called “Learning for Life” where she learned what was needed to work at her first proper cocktail place and through a friend she joined the recently opened Drilling in 2018. Drilling Drilling is a distillery, cocktail bar, and specialty coffee place. The newly opened bar allows people to learn more about spirits, cocktails, and coffee. The distillery produces gin, various other spirits, and even a whisky. Drilling is a place where experiments are allowed. Since a lot of housing and business developments are happening in and around Bahrenfeld, the Hamburg city quarter where Drilling is located, which makes for a varied—and exciting—crowd. The bar has seats for 60+ guests. The menu shows various signature cocktails with their own spirits from the distillery—classics, and there is the possibility to be inspired by Sour or Old Fashioned varieties, which are selected by throwing two special dice. The team consists of four now but will be expanded in the near future. Inspiration Lorena draws inspiration from other barkeepers she visits and through drinking cocktails. She loves spirits and loves to read about them. Finally, yet importantly, her guests and their choice of drinks inspire her. All this leads to new ideas for new cocktails, and Lorena loves to see the guests’ reactions. Favorite cocktail The Perfect Martini with a dash of bitter. Lorena loves to drink it after work. The cocktail revives you and gives you a push. With this drink, it is easy to discern if a bartender understands the guests. It is, so to speak, a character test for bartenders, showing how well they can interpret the guest’s wishes. Check out Lorens recipes: Lorena’s Cosmopolitan and Negroni al Pistacchio Favorite bar Park Hotel Bar in Gütersloh, Germany. Lorena has never felt so welcome and well-entertained as in this bar—a remarkable experience for her. Hospitality was key at this place. It was not necessarily the bar where she had her best drinks ever, but it was all other things that made her experience there a perfect one. The future of the bar world There will always be many bars for non-cocktail drinkers. Just like in the upscale gastronomy scene, cocktails will always be a niche interest that many are not ready or willing to dive into. Of course, there is a trend and there are more people following it now than there were before, but the masses will never understand the mixology world. Lorena would like for people to break out of their habits of rum and coke and think deeper about why and what they are drinking. People’s focus should be on indulgence and pleasure rather than habits and drinking for the sake of drinking. Hamburg For a short while now, this has been home. Hamburg is open-minded, exciting, and repeatedly reinvents itself anew. It is very multicultural and your thoughts and actions are more unrestrained here. Goal in life Live every day to the fullest so you would not regret missing out if you died the next day. Best decision To go with the flow. To have peace of mind and let things happen as they will. Making the best out of a situation and ban negative stress from your life. Drilling Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Tim Gerdts [...]
December 14, 2019Bartenders PortraitsAbout Alexandra was born in 1989 in Budapest, as her father—a member of the army—was positioned in Hungary at the time. She spent her first four years there and in Germany, after which the family moved back to Minsk. Later on, she went to university to study tourism management. This was not her original plan though. Alexandra had wanted to become a professional dancer, with gymnastics being her big passion. But that came to an abrupt end, when she injured herself before entering university. Tourism was somewhat of a plan B. While studying, she started to work in a restaurant and met the bartenders working there. They and their skills instantly fascinated Alexandra, and she decided she wanted to become a bartender after this encounter. After her dreams to be a professional dancer were shattered, she saw bartending as a viable alternative, since in her eyes bartenders are also artists in their field. . Alexandra has an older sister and is part of a triplet—with four girls in the family and the father constantly abroad, she had learned early on to be strong and develop a sense of what she wanted to achieve in life Because she was a woman, however, nobody took her seriously at first, not even her parents. During her studies, she took the liberty to attend a bartending school in Kiev called Planet of Z, since no such school existed in Belarus. Becoming a bartender was a big challenge, as it was considered an all-male profession. And yet, when Alexandra came back from the Kiev bartending school in 2009, she interviewed in a new venue called ID Bar in Minsk and they took her on immediately. She stayed for roughly two years and afterwards worked in various different places, such as Heroes and Insomnia. After finishing her studies, she decided she wanted to stay in the bar world. Her parents were still not in favor of it, but she gained more and more recognition through various competitions locally and internationally. Her biggest win in France saw her placed among the six finalists and even made her parents proud. The night shifts and long hours took their toll, and Alexandra became increasingly fed up and thought about entering university in Poland to study graphic design. It was nothing more than a rough plan though, and at first, she went to Poland to help her sister with her newborn and planned to stay only a few days. She liked it a lot there, but realized that she missed mixing and talking to guests. These couple of days turned into one year, and while she was still thinking about studying, Alexandra began working in a bar again. It felt like a new start—she gained back her old enthusiasm and knew then that she wanted to be in this industry 100 percent. After that one year, her visa ran out and she had to move back to Minsk, where she joined the team of Banki-Butylki. In November 2018 she was approached by her boss, who asked her if she was interested in opening a new bar called The Moods as bar manager. She jumped on the opportunity and established this new venue. The Moods The Moods is not just a simple cocktail bar, but a bar that is inspired by pop-art culture and sparkling wine. The interior and style of the bar go back to the roots of the legendary “silver factory” studio, which was founded by Andy Warhol and became a hub for bohemians getting together in 1960s and 1970s New York. Bright colors create a cheerful atmosphere. Each cocktail on the menu describes a mood, each one has a story and describes one particular hero. All signature cocktails on the menu are dedicated to a famous pop-art image and legendary person of the twentieth century—such as the Marilyn Monroe, based on mushroom vodka and cream, meant to resemble the legendary white dress; or the Grace Kelly, an elegant drink with flavors reminiscent of sophisticated social events on Monaco’s seashore. Moreover, sparkling wine plays a vital role at The Moods. Alexandra tells me that every bottle of sparkling wine has around 49 million bubbles inside. Every bubble is a chance to make somebody smile. The Moods creates a place where drinking sparkling wine does not need a special occasion as every bubble in a guest’s glass and the resulting smile is already a special occasion in and of itself. Inspiration Inspiration is everywhere for Alexandra: people, friends, and guests—even just seeing a shampoo in a store, for example, might spark a new flavor idea. Alexandra is a fan of classic cocktails, and she likes to play around with these recipes to create new twists. On another day, she looks at a guest and studies him/her, imagines what he/she would like to drink and starts the process from there. Favorite cocktail Negroni Sbagliato—a Negroni is strong and rather bitter. Sbagliato is lighter, fresher, and more playful. The cocktail almost dances on your tongue and in your mouth. Alexandra loves the combination of light bitterness, red vermouth, and the sparkling aspect of the prosecco. Check out Alexandra’s recipes: Factory Girl and Empire. Favorite bar Nightjar in London. When Luca Cinalli still worked there, watching him was like watching an art performance. Add the visual aspects of the cocktails and it was the craziest combination Alexandra has ever seen. The live music also helped to set the scene and make it unforgettable. The future of the bar world There will be a trend towards more sustainability, less waste and less use of plastic in the day-to-day work. It is a global movement that will have a big impact on how bars are operated. Hospitality is another trend—a focus on the guests! Alexandra is convinced that people become more and more aware of this. Quality before quantity, low ABV drinks and mocktails are buzzwords, which will gain importance in the near future. People focus more on enjoyment rather than on just getting drunk. Advice for opening a bar Don’t be afraid, just do it with love and follow your dream. Love what you do and it will be alright. Take advice from friends and listen to them. Finally, respect the people you work with. Craziest customer experience Once, while she was working in the bar, one of her twin sisters came in as a guest. Alexandra left the bar for a moment and Alex, her then bar manager, came in and saw her sister sitting at the bar drinking, thinking it was Alexandra. He came up to her and started questioning her why she wasn’t behind the bar working her shift. He was obviously quite unhappy about this. After having cleared up the misunderstanding, everybody around them started laughing, and when Alexandra came back a short while after, she and her sister even did a mixing session together. Minsk Minsk is her home. She would like to work in many other places around the world, but she loves the city and would always return. It is where her family lives and she loves the people. Even though there are two million people living in the city, it feels like a village sometimes, especially in the hospitality industry. Goal in life Having a family and kids. She just came a step closer to this by getting married in summer 2019. Best decision To stop smoking. While it was very important to her to quit this bad habit, it was extremely challenging as you are constantly surrounded by smokers in this industry. Another life-changing moment was the decision to move to Poland where she realized that bartending is her life and passion. The Moods Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Elena Gordeichik [...]
August 26, 2019Bartenders PortraitsAbout Nathan was born in 1987 and grew up in a small town called Kendall, located four hours north of Sydney. His father owned a restaurant, serving the town’s barely 2000 residents, so Nathan was brought up on small town hospitality. Nathan and his sister would always help in the kitchen, which gave him an appreciation and love for the culinary arts. Starting as a dishwasher at 13 but soon moving on to kitchen hand. His progress in the kitchen was interrupted, however, when he moved to Sydney at the age of 18 to study graphic design. In the four years it took to get his degree, he took a number of part time jobs, many of them in the service industry. While he worked both in the kitchens and in service, he eventually ended up working behind various bars. It was while working behind the bar part-time at the football and cricket stadiums that he discovered his passion for the job. While working at the Argyle, a huge menu being used at the time for the 2010 Melbourne Cup, Nathan spoke to the manager about bartending full time. The manager, impressed with Nathan’s skills and enthusiasm offered him a trial job, which eventually led to him bartending full time. Two years later, during which he learned all of the essentials about cocktail-making, Nathan moved up to head bartender. The work was challenging, since at peak occupancy, his team was as large as 40 bartenders. He stayed in this job until November 2012 and in that time he met and began dating his then girlfriend. She came from a town close to Gothenburg, Sweden. After they had been dating a short while, they decided to move to Gothenburg together but first, they moved to Kendall to save for the move. Swedish law dictated that Nathan would need a job before he could move to Sweden. His girlfriend’s father happened to be a chef and took Nathan on in the kitchen and as a bartender for weddings. He worked off and on for his girlfriend’s father for four years while working for various other bars and hotels in between. He also did some graphic design work, learned Swedish, opened a company called BCD (Behind Closed Doors), which did cocktail & food pairing. Unfortunately, this company only existed for a year and Nathan nearly quit the industry entirely thanks to this failure and his disillusionment with the industry overall. Luckily, fate stepped in, when Leo, a bartender from Stranger, approached him following his win at the 2016 final of the Linie Aquavit competition, and offered him a job. While at first hesitant because he grew tired of the industry, he took the opportunity and fell in love with the bar. Stranger Stranger is a local dive bar that, perhaps counterintuitively, does great cocktails. It is a place where locals, friends and neighbors meet. It also attracts many people working in the gastronomy industry. In the beginning of the evening, it is usually quiet and nobody but a few tourists find their way to this underground hole in a wall. Later on, as more locals and regulars arrive, it can get loud and crowded. The bar stays open until 3:00, but as of 23:00 the 60-seat space turns from a seating only policy to standing room, with a new capacity of 120. The bar opened its doors five years ago. At this time, it was a simple Mojito Bar. Nowadays, the menu is much more varied and changes every month. It usually consists of five drinks, with one particular spirit as a base. Despite this, classic cocktails and drinks are available upon request year round. Inspiration The “Curious Boozehounds” menu at Stranger, which changes its base spirit every month, always gives Nathan his inspirational starting point. The base spirit is always the starting point Each bartender must invent a drink for that month’s menu. Sometimes it might be a sour, other times a highball. The team creates this menu to try new things and – as the name suggests – be curious. For Nathan, developing a drink is like clockwork, he is a pro and often pulls his inspiration from his knowledge of food culture. In general, he likes clean flavors and not too many ingredients. Favorite cocktail A good Paloma! Nathan loves highballs. The Paloma is a fresh-tasting drink with his favorite spirit and sweet component combinations: Tequila and Agave. It is both refreshing and uplifting and you can drink a lot without getting too tipsy too fast. Finally, it is not too sweet; a perfect balance. Check out Nathan’s recipes: Strangers Sour and Norwegian Old Fashioned. Favorite bar The Baxter Inn in Sydney. When Nathan went there for the first time, he was new to cocktails. In a way, his interest in bartending was born there. Old Fashioneds, Bourbons, everything he tried there was a revelation. For these reasons and many more, he loves The Baxter Inn. The future of the bar world Locally, he would love to see more small independent cocktail bars. Those with no kitchen –  just cocktails. Unfortunately, the licensing laws in Sweden make this difficult. Currently, any place serving alcoholic beverages must also provide food. Nathan hopes this law may eventually be relaxed or even lifted so there might be standalone cocktail bars. It would be nice to see a bar serving only classic cocktails. As for the future of the bar world on an international level, it is hard to say where things may go, since things change constantly. There are a lot of flavors and products coming from Asia at the moment, but Nathan would love to see more ideas from the US again, or even from Australia. Craziest customer experience Crazy at Stranger means people dancing on the bar topless and getting showered with champagne. A while ago, two benches in the bar were smashed because people were going dancing on them. In general, there is something that breaks at a rate of once per week. Nathan explains that this has to do with the clientele from the service industry, since they are known to play as hard as they work. Really, the craziest customer experience is every week at Stranger. He says that those who visit to the bar early in the evening would not recognize the place later on at night. Gothenburg Gothenburg has real neighborhood feeling and sense of community. Everyone seems to know one another. The drawback is that sometimes it feels there is no privacy in the city,but it is Nathan’s chosen home. He loves it and has no intention of moving back to Australia. Target in life Opening his own bar eventually, but for now he feels he has time to go with the flow. When the time feels right, he knows he will do it. Best decision Moving to Sweden where he met his now girlfriend Sara and asking her to marry him. Update: Nathan does not work at Stranger anymore. Stranger Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Thomas Norrgård [...]
October 17, 2018Bartenders PortraitsChainaya vs. Delicatessen, for many years now these two bars are fixed on my list when travelling to this buzzing city and every time I am there, both bars surprise with delicious new creation not only in the cocktail world but also the culinary side. I am fortunate to call Konstantin my friend as he and his team have shown be an unforgettable evening so often. I am very proud to feature him on my website. About Konstantin is thirty-one years old, having been born and raised in the city of Perm in the Ural Mountains. At the age of twenty-five he moved to Moscow to study restaurant business management. He had already been actively engaged in sports from a young age, and that is what his life mostly revolved around back then. When he was four years old, he started playing ice hockey, but a series of injuries put a premature end to his first big passion. At the age of fourteen he had to stop playing for good—a devastating blow for him. He had to find new activities to pursue despite his injuries, so he started swimming and jiu-jitsu, among other activities. He only ended up in the bar business by chance, when he was offered a serving job in a restaurant, even though he didn’t really need a job back then. The manager of the restaurant was persistent, though, and kept trying to hire Konstantin, so he eventually decided to give it a try. In that same restaurant another bartender inspired him to work behind the bar instead of waiting tables. He decided he would like to work in a hotel bar, but no place would hire him without any experience. So he started looking elsewhere and ended up mixing drinks in a night-club. While working there he visited a bartending school and after only a short time graduated. Around the same time, he also enrolled in several competitions. He saw great professional growth from his experience working and competing, something he keeps up today, because according to him, you are never done learning new techniques. There is a constant drive in him to get better at what he does. Eventually, it was time to move on from the nightclub as it was not providing him with what he was after: a cocktail bar where a completely new world would open up for him. The world of tastes, smells, recipes, and also a completely new clientele. Along the lines of the quote: “A cocktail party: a gathering where people mix cocktails and cocktails mix people!” His next stop was Chainaya. Although he could already look back on twelve years’ experience as a bartender, it still seemed to him that everything had just begun. Chainaya. Tea & Cocktails For Konstantin it is not about how he sees the bar, but rather how the guests see the place. And what the guests see is a kind of escape. Once you enter, you can hardly believe you are still in Moscow. You are no longer in this buzzing city that never sleeps, but in a place where time actually seems to stop. The little tea house which could just as well be located somewhere deep in rural China helps set the scene, along with small cozy niches where you can chill out. Guests not only enjoy excellent cocktails, but also fantastic teas—with the added benefit that they keep you hydrated and awake for some more drinking, or calm you down after you’ve had a few drinks and are ready for bed. The drinks concept is complemented by excellent Chinese food, which is prepared in a little corner by two Chinese chefs. Often you might enter the place when it is still dark, but the sun rises by the time you leave. Exactly as it should be when you forget time. Inspiration Konstantin draws from all kinds of sources when it comes to inspiration. He is a very impressionable person and likes to absorb all that surrounds him. These could be banal things like the weather, or even just a mood he or somebody else is in. However, he points out that traveling is one of the most powerful sources of inspiration. Favorite cocktail It is a difficult question for him, which usually goes unanswered: favorite bar, favorite cocktail, or even favorite color—he couldn’t say. Over the past few years he has stopped trying to define just one particular preference. He strongly believes that for every specific occasion or situation a completely different cocktail or bar is the perfect fit. It depends on many factors, such as mood, company, or the concept of the party. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to single out one specific cocktail, but from time to time Konstantin gets attached to one specific drink or style of cocktail. At the moment it is a simultaneously simple yet complex one: The Bee’s Knees, simplicity in three ingredients—gin, honey, and lemon juice. The drink’s complexity and appeal for him comes from how just one variable changes the experience. Work with different gins, different honey, and the Bee’s Knees is a completely different cocktail. If your gin collection is big, it turns into an endless experiment. In general, Konstantin is drawn to simple recipes such as Daiquiri or Pink Gin; it is more interesting to him to play around with these. Check out Konstantin’s recipes: El Hueso and Sunglasses Negroni. Favorite bar Rum Trader in Berlin. The future of the bar world In terms of technology, he believes the bar world will become even more similar to professional kitchens in the future. Other aspects will continue to penetrate the bars of tomorrow, too, like new bar concepts and unique architectural designs. We will see more unique concepts—as to what they will look like, however, he’s happy to leave that to the creative minds of this world. Advice for opening a bar Nowadays one can realize any idea, so it is important to understand why someone wants to open the bar and for whom. If you cannot answer these two simple questions your bar will turn into a place without a face, without a soul. Moscow While he was not born there, it feels like his home to him, and he does not know any other place that appeals to him like Moscow does. It is a city of limitless opportunities and unique people who move there from all over the world. Here, you can develop your true potential or, indeed, discover that you are not ready for the big game yet. Best decision To start bartending and learn how to make cocktails. All the decisions he took over the last 12 years as a bartender were all the right ones, as he loves what he does and he feels absolutely happy both in the bar and behind it. Target in life To realise all his plans and desires, even the most ambitious ones. Back to Bar Worldmap Images: © Guillaume Megevand [...]
July 27, 2018Bartenders PortraitsJapan is famous for cocktail, the mixing style and the level of service is unparalleled. I have been to Trench a few years ago and even then, Rogerio was the epitome of a bartender. The Pouringtales was destined to have him featured on the site and I was very happy when he agreed to the shoot. About Rogerio is forty-three years old and was born in Saõ Paulo, Brazil, where he lived until he was nineteen years old. His mother is of Japanese heritage but was also born in Brazil. After attending a technical/mechanical school, Rogerio started an apprenticeship at Bosch. Working while studying for the university entrance exam, he decided to take a break because everything was happening too fast for him. So Rogerio went on a search to discover his roots and traveled to Japan. While in Japan, he spent the first three-and-a-half years working in a bottle-making factory in the countryside. Despite the several years he spent immersed in Japanese culture, he never managed to pick up much of the language. In 1997, he quit his job and decided to go traveling to New Zealand. Rogerio did not speak any English either at this time and decided it was time to do something about that. The solution was a homestay in Vancouver, Canada, for one year. After that year, and with enough English to get by, he moved back to Japan and started working in a café owned by a Canadian. It was his first job in the hospitality industry as a waiter and he disliked it immensely. His Japanese was still too bad to be able to properly interact with the guests. Another homestay of one-and-a-half years and an intensive course at university provided a solution to his frustration of not being able to interact with the Japanese. He eventually moved on to a strip club where he waited tables, deejayed, and was eventually able to get some experience in barkeeping. A Filipino bartender taught him a lot of what there is to know about drinks. Later he started working as a dishwasher in a tequila bar called Agave in Tokyo. Back in 2000, Agave already had a huge tequila and mezcal collection. It was his first real contact with spirits. Rogerio wasn’t a fan of tequila, though, and it took him a while to appreciate it. Agave had a second establishment in Ebisu, where he helped out from time to time, and from there he found his way into Bar Tram, which he frequently visited as a customer before deciding to work for them. Tram wasn’t all about cocktails back then; only roughly 20 percent of their sales came from cocktails. Whisky bars were plentiful in Tokyo by that time, and to set themselves apart from them, they began to serve absinthe. This was in 2006. Rogerio brought back thirteen bottles from a wedding in Paris to increase their collection. Absinthe hadn’t really caught on in Tokyo yet, and it took them a long time to establish it. Over time, they collected more than 140 bottles, as the drink itself got more and more popular. Ultimately, people would come from far and wide to taste the absinthe at Tram and they became the most established absinthe bar in Japan. When a regular customer who owned a curtain shop close by moved out around 2012, he approached the team and asked if they wanted to take over his shop. They weren’t sure if they wanted to run a second establishment, but after some discussion decided to open a small place, which they named this new bar. Rogerio became a partner and took over the management of this new bar. He still lives in his Ebisu microcosm and travels to work by bike as often as he can. Bar Trench When they opened Bar Trench seven years ago, Rogerio’s team did not yet have a strong identity. Rogerio went on a trip to Copenhagen and by chance visited the renowned cocktail bar Ruby. His experience there changed his mind about cocktails. After he came back, he transformed Bar Trench by focusing much more on cocktails. The bar stopped serving any wine and they only ever have six bottles of beer in the fridge. The bar has only twelve seats and Rogerio runs it with five staff members, even though it is open every day of the week. Four times per year, the menu is changed, with only a third of the drinks remaining on the menu. They are open until late at night and the exposed brick walls and wooden elements promote a cozy feel and atmosphere. Inspiration Rogerio’s inspiration comes from pretty much anywhere, for example from a movie or a song. Sometimes the recipe comes first and the name afterwards, but sometimes it’s the other way around. A guest came in with a small tattoo a while ago and it was just a little black line in the palm of his hand as an extension of a finger. Rogerio asked what its meaning was, and the he said: “It is the shadow of my finger.” Rogerio loved that so much as a name, that it inspired him to create a twist on a Corpse Reviver called the Shadow of my Finger. Favorite cocktail Rogerio’s favorite is a Brooklyn cocktail. Before that it was a Manhattan, but that eventually became too sweet for him. A bartender introduced him to it back in the day and it has remained his favorite ever since. He just loves the combination of the ingredients with a bitter taste. Check out Rogerio’s recipes: Blueberry Hill and Viktor Schauberger. Favorite bar Bar Qwang in Tokyo. The future of the bar world Despite Japan’s renowned bartending culture, Rogerio feels that bartenders are ready for more, but the guests are not. Tokyo bars such as High 5, Ben Fiddich, and Bar Trench are scarce, and it is hard to attract new customers and inspire them to try something new. Lots of bars are stuck in their ways, as they don’t see room for innovation. However, this is slowly changing, partly due to a new, international clientele and the recent cocktail boom worldwide. With the younger generation in Japan, there may be hope, but Rogerio sees another difficulty ahead: the new generation does not drink that much and going to bars is not as trendy as it used to be. It will become more difficult in the future and bar owners will need to know their customer base. Advice for opening a bar Nowadays making delicious cocktails is not so difficult if you have some creativity and knowledge. There is plenty of information out there for free and there are tons of recipes and books to indulge in. Pairing this with high end spirits and good quality fresh and homemade ingredients it is half the rent. But running a bar is much more than that as you have to keep an eye on costs. You have to aim for the win win situation for the guest but also yourself. Selling a lot is good but if your costs are too higher, you will loose in the long run. You have to find a balance for you and your customers. Manage your costs is key and making cocktails is just a small part of the business. Tokyo It certainly feels like home to Rogerio now after so many years. When he first came here, he felt that everything was the exact opposite compared with Brazil. He met the right people, though, and he learned to enjoy the flow of the city over the years. He also stopped asking “why?” all the time and learned not to try and think too logically. It helps him to be at ease with Tokyo. Best decision When he took a dive into the serving world and began to think more seriously about the hospitality industry. He hated it at first, but after putting some thought into it, he beagn to appreciate it. He used to block too much, but after trying to understand the service industry, he realised that instead of the customer or the sevice, it was he who was the problem and he learned to open up an appreciate it. This realization eventually led him to where he is now. Target in life He would like to have 4 horses and 3 dogs and a bird and a house. He always had a dog while growing up, but since he moved to Japan he never got one. His brother had a horse when they were young but could not keep it when they moved to the city. He loves horses. Trench Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: © Martin Holtkamp [...]
April 20, 2018Bartenders PortraitsOn my return to Athens, it was time to visit another bartender. My friend Thanos recommended me a young talented female bartender. I jumped into a taxi and drove down to Glyfada to meet Fenia at the Ark. About Fenia was born in 1992 in Athens. After completing her compulsory schooling, she decided to study food technology and nutrition. However, she never completed her studies because, as so often is the case, passion stepped in. During her studies, she always worked – especially in summer where she came in contact with gastronomy and hospitality working as a waiter in a café/restaurant. From there, she moved to a hotel and later to bars. But it was not until she started working at Clumsies, that she realised that there is much more to the cocktail world. She started loving spirits and cocktails and everything relating to mixology. Fenia enjoyed her studies. It was an interesting field to study, but she already knew that she did not want to work in that field later on. She does not rule out picking up her studies again a few years down the road. The cocktail virus was too contagious – not only as a customer, but working as a bartender, it was getting even more contagious. The door opener was Clumsies, where she met a lot of bartenders from all around the world. From there, she recently moved to Ark to run the bar in this restaurant/bar establishment in Glyfada. 2017 was a successful year for Fenia; winning the Lady Amarena competition, which is an event just for female bartenders worldwide. Ark Ark is actually more like a restaurant with a bar that opened a bit more than 3 years ago. Up until recently, the place did not have a bar life, but that is why Fenia came in to give it a new face. Already in summer, they worked with a temporary outside bar, to attract more cocktail drinkers. The place itself focuses on Greek and Mediterranean cuisine and particularly on seafood, since it is located right on the waterfront. A new cocktail menu is coming out seasonally and the trend for the clients is to order more and more cocktails. It is a form of entertainment and the owner has realised that potential. Inspiration Fenia is still a youngster in the mixology industry and as such, she is influenced and inspired primarily by classic cocktails. She is eagerly learning from the great cocktails books from the past and the present. Whenever she can, she visits other bars, to see what the competition is doing. More and more often, she lets herself be inspired by her customers’ moods and the flavours they like. Favorite cocktail Her cocktail of choice is the Negroni. It only has 3 ingredients, but depite this, it holds the ultimate and maximum flavour. Moreover, she is a huge gin fan, but likes variations of Negronis too. The bitter flavour is another aspect for it being her favourite. If no Negroni is available, she goes for the good old G&T as her drink of choice. Check out Fenia’s cocktail recipes: Cuore Caldo and Don Bologna. Favorite bar Understandably, Baba Au Rum in Athens. The bar is very cosy and the people are very friendly. It is like a family, especially with the staff, and Thanos adds much to this extraordinary atmosphere. The music is a further factor which make the excellent drinks even more enjoyable. The perfect place for a good night out. Fenia has not yet travelled much, as she is still young, but a bar she would love to visit is the American Bar at the Savoy in London. The future of the bar world Greek bartenders have been making huge progress over the last years and will certainly continue to do so in the future. Many bars have felt the economic downturn, but through quality and creativity, the Greeks will also find the time and resources to enjoy a good drink in the future. Especially now that cocktails are getting more and more popular in the city. Fenia is hoping that cocktail menus will be getting more simple again. She hopes that the fancy trend will wear out in the future. Athens Fenia loves the centre of Athens a lot. It is very lively. There are always new things to discover and it is not so huge that you may lose yourself. One finds everything one desires. It is definitely home for her, since she has lived there her whole life. Leaving has never been an option so far, even though she likes to travel because she is very fond of her hometown and its community. Best decision To start to drink! Literally meaning starting to work in the bar industry. She loves the contact with people and the creativity out there. Target in life To travel the world. She wants to learn something new every day, since it is very important in this line of work. Eventually having her own bar is an idea that comes naturally to a bartender. Update: Fenia is not working at Ark anymore. Ark Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: © Thomas Chalastanis [...]
February 15, 2018Bartenders PortraitsBesides Chainaya in Moscow, Delicatessen was always my favourite place to drink and also eat when in Moscow, so when I came back this time it was clear to me, that I had to get one of the owners from Delicatessen in front of my lens. Slava Booze Lankin, as his Facebook name shows, is a legend in Moscow. I had to concentrate when interviewing him, since he had already prepared me 3 cocktails before we even started. Let’s meet one of the masterminds behind this incredible concept. About Slava is 48 years old and was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. In 1984 he moved to Moscow and attended college for 3 years. Afterwards, he joined the Russian airborne division for 2 years and was deployed for a short time in the war in Afghanistan before coming back to Moscow in 1988. The next 3 years he lived like a hippie in town and did not really work. In 1991 he started working in a small café. Many casinos were opening up around this time in Moscow. He switched jobs a few times within the casino industry and finally working his way up to bartender and bar manager. One time Slava went to a bar owned by two guys from Latvia and here they mixed cocktails. He was fascinated. The Baltic states were quite different from Russia back then and he realised that they were mixing cocktails he had never seen before. In 1993 he went to work as a bar back for these guys since this place was much more advanced than any of the casinos in town. After a while, he moved to a place called Kakadu; a tiki style bar. The menu had prices listed in Deutsch Mark as it was more stable than the rouble. Slava stayed at Kakadu for about 4 years. One of the Latvians eventually opened a casino style club called Mirage and Slava joined his team as a bar manager. The venue was big and had a concert capacity for up to 1’500 people. It was very famous for jazz music. He learned speed mixing and managed very high volumes. He ended up staying at this place for 2 years. In 1999 both Latvians opened a Mexican restaurant called Pancho Villa where he also met Zhenia, who would become one of the co-owners of Delicatessen. It was the first project where Slava had overall responsibility. He stayed for 2 years and then opened his own place called the Real McCoy. The Real McCoy was a speakeasy style place. This was around the same time that Petraske opened Milk n’ Honey in New York. The Real McCoy functioned more like a club rather than a small bar as it was very hard to run a cocktail bar in Moscow back in 2001. The place was not focused on high end mixology. The clientele was not looking for that. Slava ran this place for 5 years. “I was really focusing on keeping the place afloat.” After 5 years, he was exhausted. He wanted to open a small, laid back restaurant with good food and wine. To experiment, he did some infusions for guests who would drink cocktails and he was the first to do it in Moscow. It was a Spanish place focused on quality. After a while, he felt tired again, and as he had some time he started to experiment more with mixology and eventually decided to open Delicatessen with 4 friends he met along the way: Zhenia, Pablo and Ivan. Delicatessen The project felt like a dream come true for these 4 friends who could do something for their souls without the need for an investor in the background. All four have their own responsibilities. Their concept is to take on very young staff and give them a chance to learn the hospitality business. Most of the new staff has zero experience and it took them a lot of time in the first years to train all the new members. They now prefer young inexperienced staff as they have so much passion and they had found that the more experienced ones would get lazy at times. Overall they have 14 in their team and it functions a bit like a school. They have more staff than they need, but they want to give young people an opportunity. Many go on the competition circuit later on. Slava says it is not about money as this is not their focus. A person with a stint working at Delicatessen on their resume is well regarded in the scene thanks to its good reputation. Multiple generations are now working at Delicatessen, Slava, for example, still works on Thursday even though all positions are filled. The place itself is a mix between bistro and English living room. You walk down a few flights of stairs and enter the brightly lit room with the bar. There is no cocktail menu on paper but the staff is eager to help out with recommendations. Besides the cocktails, which are very solid, there is also wine and the food is to die for. The menu changes frequently and you never know what to choose since everything is so delicious and innovative. A very cosy place to stay and enjoy. Inspiration He gets inspired by people he meets all around the world. He is part of a big community. Having been in the business so long, he has become a visionary. He knows almost all of the important people in the industry; it is like a big family. Just this year he visited Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans again. Some new ideas always come up. He has a new project in Moscow called “Youth” – a café/bar with 2 floors. There is a lab for bitters, cordials and a solera system. Here he can experiment with his friends and develop new things. Favorite cocktail His choice is a Manhattan. He likes whisky but he likes a sweet component with it which could also be PX as in his Pedro Manhattan creation which Delicatessen is also known for. Be sure to try this when visiting the bar. Check out Slava’s recipes: Porco Rosso, Pedro Manhattan and Dirty Bird Martini. Favorite bar French 75 in New Orleans. He likes the style and there is an older guy working there which he can relate to. He can smoke inside and he feels very at ease when he is there. It is a traditional place and also holds a lot of New Orleans history. The future of the bar world There will be more specialised places. Now bartenders want to find something special for them and reinvent the wheel somehow. We will see more unique concepts as young bartenders will become bar owners. There will be a new vision of simple cocktails. Advice for opening a bar Don’t be afraid. Do it! Try it! Moscow It is one big opportunity to do something great. It is his home. His child was born in this city. He has a 24-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son and his wife was born here too. Sometimes the city can become too much and you need to leave for a while to find some peace. He and his family get “allergic” to Moscow from time to time. Target in life Seeing his young staff strive in the cocktail world and having success. Best decision in life To marry his wife Alexandra. She is taking very good care of him. She motivates and supports him in all his endeavours. Delicatessen Homepage Back to Bar Worldmap Images: ©Mark Boyarsky [...]