From the archive Cocktail girl
UK bar critic Polly Vernon tells Christopher Kanal where she likes to drink.
“Hotel bars should feel like extensions of hotel rooms – sexy but a bit sleepy and cosseting. I like a strong sense of eccentricity in a bar too.
“A bar needs character and wit, with good-humored bar
staff who aren’t too sycophantic but don’t ignore you either. I went to the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel shortly after it opened and was really impressed by the staff – totally glamorous and gorgeous, but really smiley and sweet too.
“The proportions of the rooms are important. Hotel bars should be small but well
proportioned and not overcrowded. They also shouldn’t be too fashionable; it makes them too intense and frenzied. I think they often benefit from a more eclectic crowd. A bad hotel bar is one that takes itself too seriously; it forgets that its main purpose is to show people a good time. “I don’t know what gives a bar its wow factor. It just hits you when you walk in – a dash of drama, a great chandelier, a handsome barman. Even then, it doesn’t make it a good bar. You need to spend a bit of time there to know if it’s good. “My favourite hotel bar is probably the Fumoir in Claridges. The bar at the Plaza Athénée in Paris is amazing too, as is the rooftop bar at 60 Thompson in New York. “My favourite cocktail is James Bond in Moscoa at Claridges – it’s got the best name. Cocktail consultant Rachel Williams makes the best vodka martinis I’ve ever tasted. Otherwise, you can’t beat a champagne cocktail in Plaza Athénée.”
asked the bartender why, he said he hadn’t got a clue. That’s not what the client wants to hear. There should be a story: ‘Well, that’s Rocket. He ran the Grand National in 1927, broke his leg, but still got up to finish the race.’ Everything has to be there for a reason, and your bar should tell a story.” If Field’s bar could speak, it would certainly have some stories to tell. Named after the daiquiri-loving author and regular, the Hemingway Bar has been mixing drinks since 1921. “There are an enormous number of things up on the walls here,” Field admits, “but to call this a theme bar would be an insult. A couple of years ago, I was operating another bar in the hotel as well as this one. I’d come to check that everything was all right and I could see the soul just oozing around the room – so thick you could cut it.” When Field was approached to reopen the bar in 1993 it had lain dormant for a decade. “At the time I didn’t see this as being much of a cocktail bar,” he admits. “It was a place for reading and relaxing. Within five minutes of the opening night, I’d changed
Colin Field’s favourite bars
“Whenever I’m looking for inspiration, I go to the Hyatt Place Vendôme. It’s really funny because there are many things about the place I don’t like; it’s just that there’s an abundance of ideas there. “The bar counter is huge and black and about 2m wide. It can feel like you’re drinking on a football pitch – but at the same time what a fantastic idea. The idea is to have customers sit on the same side as bartenders. This is very dangerous – I wing my own colleagues – but it creates real atmosphere and a sense of
fun. The bar does fantastic tapas and cocktails, the bartenders are really well trained, and the whole experience is modern without being fashionable. “Another place I love to visit is the Murano Urban Resort in Paris. Head bartender Sandrine Houdré-Grégoire is marvellous and specialises in vodka – she makes the best vodkatini I’ve ever tasted in my life. Her team is happy, professional and well informed – key attributes in any successful bar.”
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my mind. It sounds like a cliché, but you have to listen to the clients and have the conviction to react to what they say immediately.”
Drinks are naturally an integral part of this proposition. “Know your clientele,” advises Field. “If one of my bartenders tells me he’s invented a new cocktail, I want to know whether it was invented for guys or girls, executives or stressed ladies. Again, the message needs to be coherent: don’t call a cocktail aimed at a thirty something, high-flying executive the Pink Flamingo; call it the Jaguar.” Attention to detail is key. It is just before midday when we meet, but Field has already been hard at work for several hours. “I’ve just prepared 70 glasses of water with a slice of cucumber in each,” he tells me. “These won’t be opened until later this evening and will help set the tone. Right from the water the clientele receive when they arrive, I want the whole experience to be ‘wow’.”
One might think it is the drinks and décor that will make or break an operation, but neither Field nor Bargh entirely subscribe to this view. “You’ll forgive the odd dodgy fishcake but never bad service,” declares Bargh. “If people invested as much in training as they do in PR campaigns, then this would be an amazing place to work. There are much easier ways to make a living than working in the bar trade. It’s tough. You have to do it because you love it. “Thomas Cook told his first representatives: ‘learn to like people’. I’m looking for people to whom this comes naturally. There’s one constant with all the bars I like: great service. It’s also about passion. When I first came to Paris in 1981, I’d take girls out to dinner and ask them to test me from a list of 76 different cocktails. Not very romantic, I know, but I was a fanatic.”
Bargh believes that more should be done to encourage such fanaticism. “I’d like to see more examples of apprenticeship schemes,” he says. “Alan Yao is looking at something in this area as we speak, but most owners and operators do not see the point.” They are also not laying sufficient groundwork. “I really despair when people don’t want to invest in dry runs,” Bargh sighs. “One doesn’t expect a stage actor to go out and raise the roof on his first night without any rehearsal. The classroom environment is very different to going live; give your staff a chance so that they know what they’re doing.” And even if you have early success, the work does not end there. “I never sat down and decided on my bar being as it is now,” Field explains. ‘The look, the clientele and the drinks have evolved over time. Getting the feel, the look, the drinks and the staff right is only the start. One must continue to innovate. I have no ‘cocktail of the day’ until I have a ‘client of the day’.” ●
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
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