Nick Strangeway

The Path

Behind the bar, timing, sequence and memory are part of the job. Nick Strangeway’s first dated post was at Fred’s Club in 1988, and that early shift established the terms of the work: drinks as service, certainly, but also as a record of how people gather and what they expect from a room. From that point on, his practice moved beyond pouring into reading the culture around the glass.

The Work Today

Bars and restaurants, in Strangeway’s view, do best when they know exactly what they are for. He works in that space where mixed drinks and their history overlap, and where simple concepts carry the most weight. As he puts it, “There's definitely an appetite for this lack of pretentiousness, to have bars and restaurants that are very simple conceptually, or that specialise in one thing.” The argument is plain: strip the idea back, keep the purpose legible, and let the place stand on the clarity of its offer. Presentation follows the same rule. “We get guests who ask: 'can I have a wine glass?' I say no, we don't do that. And we serve a lot of our drinks in jam jars. It's what's in it that counts.” The vessel is secondary; the drink leads. In Strangeway’s hands, the choice of glassware is not a flourish but a check on vanity, a way of keeping attention on the liquid rather than the theatre around it. Trendwatching, for him, is another part of the trade. He notes the current interest in aged cocktails, while making clear where his own method stops: “The current trend is aging cocktails - we don't age them but we do put Old Fashioneds and Sazeracs in demijohns.” The reference is precise, and so is the stance. He tracks the direction of the market, but keeps the execution practical and unsentimental.

Signature

Nick's signature dishes include Hepple Gin and Absolut Craft. Read as a pair, they show a bar mind that values recognisable names and direct handling. In a practice built around mixed drinks and their place in culture, those signatures are less about decoration than about holding a clear line.

In Their Words “There's definitely an appetite for this lack of pretentiousness, to have bars and restaurants that are very simple conceptually, or that specialise in one thing.” “We get guests who ask: 'can I have a wine glass?' I say no, we don't do that. And we serve a lot of our drinks in jam jars. It's what's in it that counts.”