Arron
How it is to work in one of the best bars in the world
We hear so much about the 50 Best bars or restaurants, but no one really understands the work and process behind earning such an award. The reality is less magic, more juicing, more hours, but a great satisfaction. Arron has been working for the cocktail bar Little Red Door for many years, contributing to some of the bar's biggest achievements. Currently, the cocktail bar is the sixth-best in the world, having already been in the ranking for 11 years.
We met at a craft beer bar in Paris; after trying our way through different beer samples, we settled down on their terrace. Arron is a character that looks like he just returned from a day off the sea, yet dressed with style. Red cheeks and messy hair that are hidden by a beanie most of the time. He told me about his youth in Leeds, where he studied music production. Meanwhile, he made money by working in student nightclubs and serving cocktails in plastic cups. He continued working in bars after his studies, and shortly after, he realised that bar life was much more profitable than being a musician. “I guess I was hoping to become a rock star or something”. He continued making music, leading bands, and writing albums while growing into the bar scene and eventually becoming a bar manager. Having been to Paris a few times already, he jumped on the opportunity to leave home when a friend told him about this cocktail bar in Paris.
Two days before his interview at the bar, he moved into a temporary Airbnb in Paris. At the interview, he had martinis with the managers, and only three days later, he started working. Sidenote: I've never heard of anyone so lucky when moving to a new country.
That was four years ago. Back then, the bar was the 38th best in the world. Each year, the bar's concept, including the menu, changes. I have never seen someone so excited talking about a menu as Arron (including me). Each year, the managers decide on a new concept for the cocktails, designing the drinks accordingly. He shared with me his favourite layouts. When I first came to visit, the menu was inspired by architecture, and each cocktail was based on a different architectural style. Creating a cocktail around brutalism can sure be challenging. Each menu takes 9 months and a lot of trial and error. The team members get to create their own recipes based on their interpretation of the concept. It takes time to find the right approach to the right product; it requires long hours and a lot of tastings. I always hated the people who came in and immediately succeeded on the first try. The bar makes its own spirits, produced by a distillateur in their little lab. Creating and producing a spirit from scratch comes with great satisfaction. You could compare it to the book “The Parfum”, where the main character realises everything can be turned into a parfum. Garnishes also play an essential role. Almost every cocktail has a garnish, varying from an edible flower to a small cake. It all depends on the cocktail and its nature.
The first menu he introduced me to was “A Way With Words”—a menu inspired by words only existing in one language, creating each cocktail around a different expression. It's an interpretation of the word itself, its meaning and its purpose. An example is the arab word naeeman, which means “to be blessed” or “to be contented”. The cocktail included fermented agave, forbidden fruit and hobs. It truly gives the client space for interpretation. Or, as the bar's slogan says, playfully pushing boundaries.
The following year, the concept “Don’t Judge a Door by its Colour” appeared and even successfully won the « World´s Best Cocktail Menu » award by TOCT (Tales Of The Cocktail Foundation). The idea was to separate the flavour and the taste of a cocktail. Cocktails with classic ingredients like lemon, coffee, mint, or honey are presented without their ordinary taste/sensation. A deconstructed cocktail—breaking the rules of nature, you might say—lemon without its sourness, coffee without its bitterness and so on.
He described the painful process of finding ingredients that manifest the flavour of mint but don't include mint itself. For the cocktail, he ended up using Apostoles, Merlet Creme de Poire, Black Cardamom, and Crystallised Menthol. To avoid the toxic traits of Crystallised Menthol, he infused it in a simple syrup and then cooked it sous vide for an hour. He fat-washed it, resulting in an intense menthol syrup—creativity on another level.
(Fat-washing is a cocktail technique where you add a fat-containing ingredient to an alcohol at room temperature, and after letting it cool down, you remove the fat, leaving you with a flavoured alcohol that excludes the fat content. For example, bacon).
My personal favourite is the Flourish menu. It is a concept that focuses on the producer and its product, from farm to table, in this case, farm to cocktail. Farmers, with their cars full of beetroot, raspberries, and plums, arrive at the lab and deliver tremendous amounts that must be processed.
Kilos of beetroot must be washed, peeled, cut up, and juiced. Arron confesses he can't see beetroots anymore. Since sustainability is essential to the concept, the products must follow the season and the region. Initially, it took a lot of work to persuade the producers of our concept. It's not easy to ask for 200kg of raspberry and tell them we use it to make cocktails. The products are either juiced, infused, or used as garnish. Raspberries are infused in a rose vermouth mix to create a botanical raspberry infusion.
Like parfum, no boundaries.
Once, we received 500 kg of plums. What do you do with 500 kilograms of plums? We weren't prepared at all, so we filled freezers and stood in the lab for days, pitting plums and processing them. We actually made it in the end.
The idea of holding a bare product in your hand that will be held in a glass the same night is tremendous. It shows how much can be done by pushing creativity and passion to their limits.
A bar like Little Red Door promises an experience, an unforgettable evening for anyone, and being responsible for such a thing feels incredible.
We also talked about the issues of this industry. Relations between barmen change according to the ranking of your bar. Everyone urges to get on the list of the 50 Best. As a bartender working in one of those high-ranked bars, you can't really make bar friends anymore. You never know if people like you as a person or as a connection to the right people. There is a thin line between considering them as a family or as people you just work with. Your work suddenly defines you; so after leaving Little Red Door, he felt like his whole personality was gone with it. You easily lose ground.
One day, Arron wants to have his own bar where he wants to highlight the simplicity of products, as well as well-made cocktails with high-quality ingredients. High standards with a laid-back atmosphere. Sounds good to me.
His advice to young bartenders: This isn't a job that can be done if you don't like working with people. It is an industry requiring commitment; you must invest in it because your life will stand secondary. It's an industry of extremes, where you must learn the hard way to get somewhere. There is no way around it. The bar life is like surfing; you sweat, you're smashed, and you might get overrun, but the feeling of thriving overpowers the exhaustion. You're flying.
Stay true to yourself, and never stop learning. Poetic.
Today, Little Red Door has changed owners but is on its way to offering a new concept with a performance just as high as before. It is changing the perspective but still blowing expectations.
The menu "Don't Judge a Door by its Color"