Chelsie Bailey

The Path

Happiness Forgets in east London is where Chelsie Bailey built speed, pressure handling, and line-by-line precision early in her career. In a room like that, service leaves little space for drift: the work has to land cleanly, and Bailey learned to work within that standard before moving on. By 2023, she had taken the head bartender role at The American Bar at The Savoy in London, a position that places cocktail work inside one of the city’s most closely watched houses.

The Work Today

At The American Bar at The Savoy, the scale of the role is part of the work. Bailey has called it “Overwhelming, to say the least. It’s definitely a learning curve.” That read is useful: the room carries a large inherited brief, but there is still room for a bartender to make decisions, shape service, and hold to the house style while pushing ideas through it. Homecoming is the clearest example of that approach. Built for The Lionesses' Euro 2022 victory, the drink brings together Lion’s Botanical, dry vermouth, St. Germain elderflower liqueur and Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé. The structure is direct: botanical base, dry lift, elderflower detail, rosé sparkle. Bailey has said the occasion set the brief first, and that the work then turned to how The Savoy has long built drinks to mark celebrations. That places Homecoming in familiar Savoy territory: a cocktail designed to acknowledge a moment, not overwhelm it.

Signature

Chelsie's signature dishes include New York Cherub, Coffee Black Velvet, Homecoming, and Fine & Fancy. Together, they suggest a bartender who moves easily between styles and moods, with a range that spans the playful, the elegant and the celebratory.

In Their Words “So that was our starting point, and from there, we just kind of looked at how The Savoy has always created drinks to honour moments to celebrate.” “But it’s been good. It’s nice having the budget to pretty much do what we wanted, and the creativity to do what we want to do as well.”

Acclaim

Homecoming is the drink most closely tied to Bailey’s name, and its build is straightforward enough to read at once: Lion’s Botanical, dry vermouth, St. Germain elderflower liqueur and Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rosé. The drink works because it stays within the brief it was given, using those elements to frame The Lionesses' Euro 2022 victory as a finished bar serve rather than a gesture of excess.