Bartenders have dressed all kinds of ways in the past 200 years. Jerry Thomas – the original 19th-century “celebrity bartender” – wore a shirt and waistcoat “all ablaze with diamonds” and a Derby hat (sometimes accessorised with a pair of pet rats). Modern-day mixologists channel everythingfrom goth to steampunk.
It’s the classic white dinner jacket, though, that remains the most iconic look of all – a shorthand for the old-time elegance of Dukes in St James’s, Harry’s Bar in Venice and the American Bar at The Savoy. And now it’s being reinterpreted. “In the Jazz Age, white conveyed confidence, cleanliness and ceremony – it signalled mastery,” says Dominic Dijkstra, director of mixology for the Waldorf Astoria, Osaka. “Today it still carries that same visual power.”
Tata Bar in Copenhagen © Courtesy of Sanders
Our bar people are craftsmen, like the chemists in a lab
Juan Santa Cruz, restaurateur, Obvio
