Sebastian Tollius talks Clemente Bar, Eleven Madison Park

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We’re a little late out with Drinks At Work this week — I’m operating on Greenwich Mean Time at the moment during something of a whirlwind European trip before kicking things off in Sydney for the Maybe Cocktail Festival, which starts on Monday 7 April.

It’s going to be a big week.

There is something like 20 takeovers happening across seven days, with some of the world’s very best bars coming to town — you can see the full program here.

And that brings me to my guest on this episode of Drinks At Work: Sebastian Tolls, the beverage director for New York fine dining restaurant Eleven Madison Park and their acclaimed cocktail bar, Clemente Bar, which opened just last year.

I’ve had the chance to sit at the bar in front Sebastian a couple of times now, at Eleven Madison Park but also during a guest shift at Maybe Sammy a couple of years back, and he’s one of the smarter, more considered and genuinely hospitable bartenders on the global stage — he also makes some great tasting drinks, so do yourself a favour and get to his guest shift at Prefecture 48 on Wednesday 9 April, from 4.30pm to 7.30pm (not the Thursday, as I mistakenly say in this episode!).

I enjoyed my chat with Sebastian for this episode, do give the full show a listen. And I’ve also included a lightly edited and condensed transcript of the podcast below — let me know if you prefer this version, of the key takeaways we usually do, by sending me an email to sam@boothby.com.au.

Sam Bygrave: Sebastian Tollius, thanks for joining me on Drinks At Work.

Sebastian Tollius: Yeah, super excited to be here, Sam. Good to see you again.

Good to see you. We’re speaking because you’re going to be heading all the way from New York to Sydney in a few weeks time for the Maybe Cocktail Festival. Looking forward to you coming down and do that. You’ll be repping the Clemente Bar this time. Last time you were down it was for Eleven Madison Park.

That’s correct. Almost two years ago I was down in Sydney at Maybe Sammy, and coming back this year for the Maybe Cocktail Festival with Clemente Bar, our new cocktail bar that we just opened up a few months ago, late last year.

For people who don’t know you Sebastian, can you tell us what your role is because you oversee the bars for not just the Clemente Bar but also Eleven Madison Place, Madison Park. Tell us what that involves.

It’s two very different concepts within the same space. We opened Clemente Bar just upstairs of the restaurant and the programs vary quite drastically. Because what we really wanted to do is create something different, something exciting, but at the same time, take the attention to detail that we do so well at Eleven Madison Park and bring that into a more casual, upscale bar experience.

The way the programs differ is that, at Eleven Madison Park, we work really closely with the kitchen, with the seasons, creating a shared language between the tasting menu and the cocktails and how can we fully encapsulate that experience to talk about the seasonality of the ingredients. While at Clemente Bar, we really wanted to be inspired by other avenues, especially given that the namesake of the bar is Francesco Clemente, who’s an artist and dear friend of Chef Daniel’s. We were inspired by many other factors, within the space, and art. For example, things like colour and texture and contrast, and also emotions. So the menu itself is really quite different, but we also wanted to take a lot of the things that we’ve been working on perfecting over the last couple of years at Eleven Madison Park and fully focus this into the cocktail world — all the fermentation that we do, and really taking time as an ingredient [and] to workshop our cocktails through that as well.

Tell us a bit about how you got started with Eleven Madison Park? I’ve seen you at the bar there — it’s one of my favourite bar experiences, which is interesting to me because it’s essentially a restaurant bar. Obviously Eleven Madison Park is a hugely successful, a well regarded restaurant. How did you get started there?

I started working at Eleven Madison Park in 2019. It was right about the time that I was ready to move down from Boston. I was living in Boston for almost four and a half years and working at a place called Eastern Standard and fell in love with that place, fell in love with the city. But I knew I had to start pushing myself a little bit more. I’d been coming to New York since I was young and I’ve always had my eye on moving back to the city. I did my first hospitality internship here in 2008. And since then, I knew I wanted to move back down. So I made the decision to move down in 2019 and applied to a few places. The Nomad was definitely one of my top spots. And when I sat down with people at the Nomad, based off of my resume and my travels and having worked in hospitality my whole life, they also recommended that I go speak to the people at Eleven Madison Park.

I'd never been into the restaurant either. Obviously had heard amazing things about it, and was a little bit on the fence about wanting to join fine dining again and this style of service. But as soon as I sat down at the bar, and tried the food, tried the drinks, felt the hospitality from the team, you know, my decision became so much harder and eventually I did make the decision to start working at EMP.

Frankly it was the best decision I could have made. It's pushed me to become a much stronger bartender and professional in this industry and to be surrounded by all these amazing people has also been the most rewarding part about it.

Yeah, what's it like running a bar like that in such a high standards kind of restaurant? Because sometimes with the bar, it's kind of looked down on as sort of a little bit more a troublesome ruckus causing cousin to really nice restaurants, right?

Right. And how do you refine that? How do you actually set the tone for the style of service, but also the way that we're presenting the cocktails? For me it was this beautiful balance between taking the job very seriously, but not ourselves very seriously. And that's really what I found most invigorating about working in a place like this, given the attention to detail, given all the collaboration that we do with the kitchen and with the seasons and with the farms — to have the opportunity to create an experience like no other.

Bars are about having fun and that's for me the biggest takeaway about a good bar experience. It could be a trashy dive bar that I have an amazing time at or it could be a super upscale bar as well. But you know, at the end of the day, you want to walk out of there feeling happier than when you walked in.

I think EMP Bar is like a little bit of a best kept secret in New York. You can walk in, enjoy a couple cocktails, do some a la carte options, do the full tasting menu. It's really like you can choose whatever you want, choose your own adventure there.

I was surprised when I went there because it's a fine dining restaurant. It wasn't like we were loud and raucous there, but I really had a great time there and had a lot of fun at the bar, which I wasn't maybe expecting from that kind of fine dining environment.

Yeah, no, I had a lot of fun with you guys too. That was a fun night.

How long has Clemente Bar been in the works for?

The conversation started roughly around a year and a half ago of really getting serious about where we wanted to go with the bar program. With what we've been doing with EMP bar and how we've been folding ourselves into this fine dining, three Michelin star restaurant. But at the same time, we have this incredible bar — how do we tell the story of all the experiences that you can showcase within that space?

We're getting so much great traction and lots of happy people and regulars coming back and really loving the space. So how can we also create something that's going to be unique to New York?And that was my biggest thing—

That’s hard to do.

100 percent. [We wanted to] create something that feels like it's meant to be in New York.

Really the goal was to be able to continue to push what we do in the bar program — hire the best people, work with the best people, and also have the best guests and give the best guest experience.

So to create Clemente Bar, it was a conversation that started quite a while back. And when we decided to pull the trigger there, things started happening pretty quickly. It's a space where we had multiple people collaborating in terms of art, architecture, obviously the drinks and the food menu and how we wanted to represent that space and at the same time create something extra — to create something other than a cocktail bar.

[That’s] where we created the studio, which is a tasting counter where you do a five course tasting menu that's meant to be paired with cocktails. So how do we create a new bar experience within the space that we can really pull on all of the expertise from everybody that works there and create something unique as well?

That's the fun part about Clemente Bar — there are two experiences within that same space.

Just before we get on to the two experiences, how did you go about rooting the place in New York? Because if you look at cocktails around the world at the moment, they're all sort of starting to taste the same-ish or they sort of look the same. So really making that kind of specific to the place that it's from, I think, is getting more challenging.

I mean, I totally agree. I think New York is really at a moment right now in an uptrend where, for over a decade now, we almost say it's kind of stagnant. Like New York was it in the late 2000s, early 2010s—

We all had to go there. Everyone had to go there from everywhere else in the world.

100 percent. I feel like we kind of got stuck there for awhile. And it's amazing to see how many new bars are popping up and really reinventing New York and putting New York back on the map in terms of creativity, in terms of how we're working with the ingredients and also the overall guest experience because New York is such a large city, but at the same time, it's very small. And how do you identify yourself as a New York bar? For me, it's a feel. It's like you walk into a place and it just feels like you're having one of these New York nights. Honestly, it could be due to the aesthetic, could be due to the people, the cocktails. And obviously my focus with the team is to grow them, but to also put my creative direction in the list, which is obviously the funnest part. But how do you create unique things? Given that I've been so fortunate enough to have worked in this industry and traveled through a lot of places, how can I also bring a lot of those personal experiences onto the menu as well?

Because New York is a melting pot of cultures. You have so many of these things on our doorstep that we can really pull from, and get inspiration from.

Tell us about the tasting menu experience. How does that work and how do you come up with the menus for that? Because I guess it's got to be collaborative, right?

A hundred percent. The studio was really meant to be a collaboration between bartender and chef and something that I've really noticed over so many years and having bartended for a very long time now, the more I say it, the older I feel every single time—

You’re not that old man. Come on.

I know, but it starts to feel really old. It starts to feel old, I'm telling you.

Yeah, it's like dog years, right?

But in that way, I've come from pub bartending, club bartending, and high volume bartending. Eastern Standard was incredibly high volume, but at the same time, back then, nothing was batched. Everything was made, and there was a whole different shift in the way that we were working. And batching cocktails, to some degree, is great because I think it improves efficiency. Also, for the most part, you can keep your cocktails tasting more consistent, which is important.

But to some degree, we've lost the art of what bartending was. So with the studio, I wanted to take all of that away and showcase the craft of bartending and chef for the forefront of the experience. So nothing is batched. Everything is old school bartending with modern techniques. And we can really pull inspiration from 200 years of bartending history. If we wanted to do some sort of a Cafe Brûlot-style drink for the winter, or even go a little molecular in terms of how we want to approach that, but do it all in front of the guests.

I love that. So the cocktails are designed to go with the food. How often are you changing the drinks and the food on that menu?

So far we've done a few changes and I think it's really about how can we work seasonally? How can we work with what inspires us? I'll go to the kitchen and we'll work together and we'll work on a dish pairing for [that cocktail idea]] or vice versa. And it's really about how can we create this as a bar experience? You know, yes, it's within EMP. Yes, it's the tasting, but it's really meant to be part of Clemente bar.

How do you differentiate the food between the two spaces then? Because I mean, I'm assuming it's plant-based. I did see Clemente Bar is described as, what was it? “A bar for hard-drinking vegans.”

Oh that article — clickbait articles are crazy.

I didn't read the story, I just saw the headline!

Yeah, that was an interesting one. We always got to throw it in there, but you know, yes, are, we are fully plant-based, upstairs, downstairs. And it's important for us to keep pushing that agenda forward, but at the same time, it's not meant to be the focus of what that is, you know? And I think that article is a perfect example of how people just focus on that. But I think if you go to a bar—

And I noticed you hadn't brought it up yet.

And there's so many bars in the city, you have great drinks, great bites, and then you walk out of there like, wait a minute, I had no animal products whatsoever. I think that's kind of the funny part about it too. So how can you create this almost unexpected experience at the end when people realise walking out that everything was plants?

Tell us about how the menu works that's not in the studio. What's how big is the list and that kind of thing? What are the style of drinks on there?

So the menu itself at the main bar [of Clemente bar] is broken down into different categories. For me, it was super important to create a menu that read easily and seemed accessible because of the things that we are doing are much more technical than what we're presenting on the menu. And I think that's kind of the best part.

People need to be able to understand what you're doing and not have the barrier up straight away, right? You're already walking into the bar that's above EMP, if you haven't been in there before, it can be kind of intimidating, I'm assuming.

Yeah, 100 percent. So many menus nowadays, there's like four out of the five ingredients, you don't even understand what they're saying. So most people would just revert to ordering a vodka soda.

Yeah. Well, people don't want to look like idiots, right?

Exactly. So it’s broken down into different sections and categories: bold, fresh, carbonated, low-ABV. And what we wanted to work with only four descriptors, and we're not throwing fermented this — there's a few misos, or something acidified, but nothing that sounds super crazy that we're trying to flaunt everything that we're doing and throw it in your face. [We want to] keep it a little bit more subtle. So it is accessible, easy to understand, but then when you receive that drink, it's gonna be much, much more than what it reads.

There's a lot of menus where, you know, I’d like to think I’m a reasonably educated bar consumer. There's a lot of menus where I have no idea what half the ingredients are these days, which is fine. But just tell me what I should expect in that glass.

So you're coming out for the Maybe Cocktail Festival. How do you how do you think about these guest shifts these days? Because you've done a few.

Yeah.

What's in it for you guys? What do you want to try and bring for the people who get along to them?

You know, I think we're living in this really new world of bartending and I'm very grateful for the opportunities to travel and to do guest shifts. I think it's a great way to create community throughout the world. The biggest thing that I want is to make sure that me and all of us who do these things focus on, is that we're truly bringing something that's unique and special for the guest. It's really about creating something new, exciting. Bringing new bars is exciting to local markets, [but] when I look at these things, I want to be a little bit more intentional about my time. Put me to work. It is work. But we're excited to showcase what we've been working on at Clemente Bar during Maybe Cocktail Festival. Because I am bringing some of these ferments and some of the misos that we make, and really showcasing the program in the best of its capacity. We'll see if border control stops me for a couple things. I'm not bringing anything illegal. Trust me.

Trust me, I'm a bartender. Were you able to get through customs with them last time?

No, last time I was too scared to bring anything. And the team at Maybe Sammy did an incredible job creating these cocktails.

Well, you're going to be at Prefecture 48, I believe it is, on Wednesday, April 9th at 4.30pm in the afternoon. So you basically get the night off after that.

Beautiful. I'm looking forward to that. You know, I did learn my lesson last time though, making sure that I wear my sunscreen when I go to the beach, go to Bondi. I was a little toasty at the last pop-up, if you might remember. You were front row seats. Definitely a little toasty.

That's a rookie error when you come to Australia. Okay, to wrap up the podcast, I ask everyone the same sort of two questions. One of them is, what in your professional opinion makes a great bar? And then the follow up to that, and probably the more important one, is what makes you happiest in a bar?

In my professional opinion, I mean, so many little factors is actually what creates a really great bar experience. And I think I touched on it a little bit earlier as well. It's really about how you're leaving, walking out of that place, but it's all in the details. You know, it's definitely the staff. The staff is the most important. People are coming back to your place because the hospitality is great. Your drinks and food can be amazing, but if you have a terrible experience in terms of hospitality, people are going to remember that and not go back. And then also talk to their friends about it. And it's really about hiring the right people and hiring passionately. That's the hallmark of good hospitality — and I think the biggest compliment as a bartender is actually creating regulars. You can get complimented, like this is the best drink I've ever had. But to see that person come back multiple times and then become regulars at your bar is probably the best compliment that you can take. Those are all things that really create a great bar experience.

And having fun, having great drinks, vibing. And read the room, bartenders should read the room and maybe that person sitting down there doesn't really wanna engage too much, and that's totally fine. As long as you're kind of really being focused and present at each interaction that you're having — and shooting the shit with the right people and then let the people that want to just have a cocktail after work enjoy it and go home.

I did want to ask you just briefly, when you're looking to hire bartenders for the Clemente Bar and even Eleven Madison Park, what do you look for? A lot of people are looking for personality these days and then reckon they can train the rest, but you're also looking for someone who can really focus on details and act to a certain level, right? To a high standard.

A hundred percent. I interview a lot of people and I think what's really important is passion. That's the biggest thing that you need to hire for — personality, yes. But passion and what we do, and especially in terms of like understanding fundamentals of what bartending is learning spirits, learning classics, learning history, those things will push you to be a better bartender. If you're not passionate about wanting to learn those things, then I don't have too much to give you because I'm passionate about teaching those things. And that's really what the telltale of a good bartender is.

I sit down at a bar and maybe I've been to your bar multiple times and I'm feeling like something off menu and I want an Adonis; If they're immediately like, absolutely, I got you and pull out every single bottle and make it for you in that same exact moment without looking at that recipe. Now that's a good bartender.

And it’s probably because they have the passion to actually want to spend time to learn. And yes, we do require a good base knowledge and depending on where you start, bar back or kitchen, server, but if you want to surround yourself with the right people that are pushing boundaries in the industry, then you're coming to the right spot if you're really truly looking to invest in yourself and invest time outside of the bar as well.

That way they're going to get something out of the experience as well, right?

Totally. As I said, as I'm getting older, I'm mentoring now, you know?

Okay. And then the final question, what makes Sebastian Tollius happiest in a bar?

What makes me happiest is people really paying attention to the balance of drinks, to not necessarily the story, but more so of just being intentional about what they’re putting into cocktails and how they’re working with ingredients and thinking more outside of the box in surprising manners. I think Byrdi does such an incredible job. I remember the first sip that I had, and I’ll give a huge shout out to Luke [Whearty, Byrdi owner and bartender] for sure. Because that moment I’m like, wow, this drink is insane. And that makes me so happy. Cocktails were on point, vibe was on point. If I’m going out and I’m lucky to be able to spend time in a lot of my friends’ and people’s bars, like to have those moments of just going back for those drinks and really enjoying the vibe and, and understanding what they create - that’s a win.