The Interview: Tony Conigliario
Posted by GinMonkey on Sep 16, 2010 in Interviews | 0 comments Mark Gill talks with Tony Conigliaro, cocktail maestro and owner of 69 Colebrooke Row: Despite visiting his bar several times I had yet to meet Tony in person, so I was excited about the prospect of talking to a man I’d read so much about. As it turned out, Tony doesn’t play up to his ‘celebrity bartender’ status, in spite of usually being referred to as the Heston Blumenthal of the bartending world. When he arrived, business carried on as normal as he quietly took a seat to one side of the bar. I was intrigued by this understated presence so took the opportunity to introduce myself and get chatting. Process not product I quickly realised that the concept of celebrity is not something that appeals to Tony. For him the focus should be on the cocktails. Surprisingly his attitude seems to be less about the finished, and sometimes extraordinary, end product and more about the process of creation. However, don’t underestimate the almost superhuman effort Tony and his team go to to achieve perfect flavour. For that’s the thing with cocktails. Unlike food, they tend not to attract pretentious talk of provenance and although things like mouth-feel are important, it mostly comes down to one thing: flavour and its balance. If it were possible to be addicted to flavour perfection, I reckon Tony would be among the more serious cases. Often spending 10-12 hours a day in his lab upstairs, his quest seems never-ending. He tells me that he recently spent two years creating a drink because he couldn’t get it quite right. Then, when he had finally perfected it, he was given a blocking order by a major spirit producer to prevent him from serving, or even talking about it! Science as art Originally from an arts background, it’s easy to understand why the creative process is so important to him – something I find interesting considering his current preference for using scientific techniques. Tony believes this combination, and the fact that he has never trained as a scientist, gives him a unique ability to think outside the box and create drinks that have never been tried before. If you’re aware of 69 Colebrooke Row’s reputation for molecular mixology, you would be forgiven for anticipating the drinks to be on the ‘weird’ side. In fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. For Tony, these techniques are...read more
