News
24/02/2010
Theme Magazine Names Salvatore 2009 - Numero Uno
Top 100 most influential announced
29 Apr 2009|
Receiving the Top Spot in Theme's Top 100 means a great deal to me. To be named 'An Icon in his own Lifetime' by my friends and colleagues in the industry is a great honour and the highlight of my career.
It came as a total surprise to me and I was most embarrassed to find myself in the spotlight a little under dressed, deciding for once to adopt a cooler image by foregoing my trade mark bespoke suit for jeans and jacket. I wonder of the beautiful young lady would have invited me up to the stage had I been more formally attired? She was the icing on the cake that night!!! See picture below.................
THE REAL MAESTRO by Journalist Ian Cameron, Theme Magazine May 2009
I meet Salvatore Calabrese, three days after he topped Theme's poll of the most influential people in the industry, he's embarrassed and apoloqetic.
But it's not about winning pole position in the Top 1 00. He's humbled, though he had been hoping for a top 20 spot. And he's certainly not sorry about being dragged on stage at the event by a nubile young thing who forced him to help her take most of her clothes off - and who, by the way, genuinely selected him at random.
His embarrassment stems more from the fact that on the night in question he wasn't properly attired. "I didn't expect to come top," he says. "You could tell that when you saw me in jeans. I always wear a suit, it's part of my look. And I was late too, I'd been at my grandson's first birthday."
CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONAL
This attitude will not surprise anyone who has met Salvatore. The consummate proffessional, his pride, passion and, as you can see here, belief in proper etiquette, are the result of real dedication carefully honed over decades - and it's this that has made him a true bench-mark in hospitality.
"I started in this industry when I was 11," he says. "My father passed away and it was a way of bringing some money into the family and staying off the streets. It was a cafe in Maiori on the Amalfi coast hosted by Signer Raffaello. He was like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca: he knew every-thing, could charm the socks off any woman, and had incredible etiquette."
Raffaello taught Salvatore about flavours too, and how to mix his first cocktail, at just 1 2 years old. "It was an Americano, and he said well done, but when I did my first Negroni, he kicked my backside: it wasn't
balanced," says Salvatore. Raffaello was determined to impart his knowledge about customers too.
"I used to bring coffee to the chef every morning," recalls Salvatore. "One morning I brought it over as he was cleaning a fish. 'Good morning, Chef Alfonso,' I said. 'What's good about it?' he replied, and threw the fish at me. It was as big as me, and I fell flat on my back. Signer Raffaello told me I hadn't read Chef Alphonso's mood, that it's important to be able to tell whether or not someone wants to be familiar or not."
Despite his hospitality prowess, which saw him become the youngest maitre d' on the Amalfi coast aged 2 1, with 37 staff working under him, Salvatore harboured an ambition to become a sea captain. Unfortunately, he failed the sight tests, but that meant he was willing to move to the UK in 1980. He had recently met the woman who was to become his wife, and she quickly proved she was the right person for the job, spotting an advert in the Evening Standard for a bartender at Duke's Hotel in London.
Salvatore was given a trial while the hotel searched for someone more appropriate (the manager thought he had too much maitre d' experience). Luckily, the man they chose instead didn't work out. "He made a hot toddy for a customer, but he flambeed the bar and the customer. After three days they sacked him, and asked me would I like to come back."
Duke's bar weighs in at just six tables, and Salvatore realised he needed to create a reason for customers to keep coming back. "I came up with the idea of selling liquid history'," he says. "I sourced a bottle of Mine cognac from 1914, and sold it for 25 pounds a shot. I proved my case, and started a search for really old spirits. I would talk about what happened in the year the spirit was made - Napoleon in 1811 or the year of the comet in 1812. People started to talk, and our takings went from 400 pounds per day to 1 0,000 pounds per table on one occasion."
His fame grew in 1986, when a customer ordered a dry Martini. He complained that his drink was neither cold nor dry enough, so Salvatore began storing cocktail glasses in the freezer, but still the customer complained his Martini was not dry enough. Inspired by the way fish and chip shops sprinkle vinegar on chips, Salvatore filled an empty Angostura Bitters bottle with vermouth, intending to spritz the cold gin.
The customer returned that night. "He took one sip, took one look at me, got up and walked out without saying a word. But eventually he came back, and told me he worked for the San Francisco Chronicle. 'Your Martini was the best I've ever tasted, I've written an article about it,' he said."
SERVING THE STARS
Salvatore's memories of the stars he has served over the years reads like Who's Who? "I remember thinking how scruffy Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger looked, I wondered if they could pay the bill." There was Kingsley Amis too, and he once made a Martini for the Queen. Moving to the Lanesborough in the mid-1990s -again at the behest of his wife - he created bespoke drinks for Robert de Niro and Stevie Wonder and came up with one of his signature drinks, the Breakfast Martini - crediting his wife for turning him on to marmalade.
Fast forward to 2004 and Salvatore opened the bar that bears his name today. If ony bar exemplifies the art of bar-tending, it is Salvatore's at Fifty. The bar is perfectly proportioned to allow bartenders to work around each other, the three work stations include under-bar drawer refrigerators for fruit, and his now famous Calabrese sinks are at all three of them. His shakers are silver, as are the beer coasters, and the stirrers crystal. Salvatore and his staff prepare drinks on white cotton napkins on the bar, right in front of the customer rather than on the bar top.
Behind the bar are more than 500 bottles - whiskies dating from 1913; rums from 1920; and perhaps one of the finest collections of ancient cognacs. "My bartenders, even my girls on the floor, must know it all," he says.
Salvatore spends less time behind the bar these days, trusting in his staff to maintain his exacting standards. But he is ever the consummate host, a theme which chimes with his role as UKBG president, and which reminds you why he is the ultimate role model.
"Today bartenders have so much knowledge about alcohol, and have become famous, at least in our own world; but we forget the 'c' word - the consumer," he says. "You can be a great mixologist but don't forget we are also hosting and entertaining. There's nothing more beautiful than a smiling face; there's nothing warmer than your hands. This is not just a service industry, you are not a slave. You can make a difference."
Salvatore, the jeans are forgiven. M
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