“The approach that we have is everyone’s a friend of the house,” he shares. In order to achieve this, he notes that the training and development of the outlet’s team was an important part of that, as was working behind the scenes before opening, in terms of cocktail development, sourcing products and working with local distributors.
Asked about settling on a name for their venue, Vallesi and Gillespie reveal that they had a few ideas they tried on for size before settling on Cocktail Kitchen, which utlimatelly stems from their belief that the bar and the kitchen should operate as one.
“There’s a dualism,” Gillespie explains. “There’s a common trend around the world that the best bartenders will go into the kitchen and talk to the chef, and look for inspiration, and vice versa — the chef will always come to the bartender at the end of his shift and enjoy a drink. There’s a bond between the two. We wanted to create a concept with the kitchen and the bar as one, with the chef and the bartender working side by side.
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He concedes that this was physically impossible due to MEP constraints but that the synergy is still there, and actively culivated — as was one of the ways in which the venue chooses to stand out: its championing of vermouth.
“One of the trends that we looked at was vermouth and we wanted something that would give us a USP, something a bit different. Everything we wanted to do fitted into this [idea of] aperitivo. They’re fortified wines, they’re quite light and refreshing, and they have mixability. A lot of people don’t realise but actually vermouth is the king of the cocktail,” Gillespie asserts.
In complete agreement, Vallesi continues: “It’s in every classic cocktail. If you have a negroni but change the [type of] gin, the drink will remain pretty much the same but if you change the vermouth, you see something becoming much more aromatic or dryer or more intense. It switches the flavour profile more than the spirit will do; it’s a very complex beverage and we are reviving this category.”
Cocktail Kitchen sources its vermouth through MMI and has selected brands mostly from Italy, Spain and France, although it has imported vermouth from California and Germany as well, and is scoping out Australia.
“The new generation is coming from bartenders creating their own vermouth and, at the same time, brands that have been around a long time are reviving their offering. Vermouth is something that has its own identity,” Vallesi adds.
Gillespie feels now is the perfect time to look for these sorts of opportunities as “there aren’t many cocktail bars in the city". He notes that the outlet has had people coming in who have never tried vermouth and he enjoys talking to customers about the cocktail menu.
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