About
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.
Images: ©Thomas Norrgård
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