It is a long story, I will divide it in 3 categories, let’s start!
Back to the Future
I graduated in Hospitality from Pietro D’Abano school in Padua, Italy, and that’s where everything began. It was the first approach to my job, where I learned about the different products and started to cultivate my passion. I didn’t start as a Bartender straight away, it has been a journey.
After school, I worked as Commis de Rang, Chef de Rang, Assistant Sommelier, and Commis de Bar, and I feel lucky to have been able to work in beautiful locations in some of the most iconic hotels, such as Hotel De la Poste in Cortina, Villa D’Este and Villa Serbelloni on Como lake. I was also working during the winter season in Switzerland. I started to talk about my experience from the very beginning because I truly believe that service is one of the most important parts in order to do the Bartender job at its best. I learned how to enrich my know-how, to be confident and to understand the guests. Today those skills make a very important part of my job. I always keep it in mind every time I work behind the bar. This is how my passion for my job started – back in the past, before all the preparation, the shakers, the mixing glasses, the spirits and all the ingredients. At that time, it was more about building confidence with guests.
London Calling
London was and still is the capital of cocktails. It is the right city if you want to improve yourself. I arrived in London in 2011 and I started as a runner at The Grill in the Dorchester Hotel. A year later, I was working at 45 Park Lane as a Bar back. This is where I understood that I didn’t know much about bartending and cocktails, even if I had studied and I had a few experiences in bars. Being humble, with perseverance and passion, I started again from zero and step by step I learned a lot thanks to my colleagues who with a lot of patience, taught me as much as they could. Moving forward, I then worked for two years as a Bartender at the Ritz, and to sum it up in a single phrase: it was the place I truly wanted to be. There I learned three important dogmas: making cocktails is an art, attention to detail, and last but not least, consistency. Afterwards, I worked as a Bar Manager at Mr Fogg’s Residence. As Bar Manager there are lots of responsibilities and you need to be good at managing different people. My goal was to build an environment with one team, where everyone would work together in order to create the best experience for the guest. It was not easy as it wasn’t just about being focused on the service and making cocktails, it was also about being able to focus on the business 360º.
Should I Stay or should I go?
After eight years in London I made the difficult decision to leave this city, moving forward and looking for a fresh new challenge. At the end of my journey in London and after seeing many different styles of bartending, I must say that I am a classic bartender and I am definitely not the Tom Cruise of any situation. However, you can never stop learning!