As Andy Loudon takes over at the helm of top London bar Scarfes, Hamish Smith finds out what he will bring to the bigger picture.
If you could build a bartender, what would you choose as the constituent parts? First, you’d want strong foundations in classics. So, trained at somewhere like Satan’s Whiskers, a direct descendent of Milk & Honey. From there, you’d want your bartender to be au fait with modernist techniques – an alumnus perhaps of somewhere like the needle-shifting 69 Colebrook Row.
The bartender by design would also have travelled widely, gaining perspective from other markets, and maybe they’d have worked alongside a Michelin-starred chef, exposing themselves to culinary insight. Of course, to run your fantasy bar, you’d want top-notch business management and mentoring skills and a feel for hospitality too. Some experience in consultancy might help, for a more holistic understanding of the industry.
What you’d have is Andy Loudon who, as of this summer, is back in London after a decade honing his skills. His new role as director of bars at Rosewood London feels like the completion of his CV. Scarfes – the hotel’s flagship bar – is now one of the biggest jobs in bartending. It’s risen from everyone’s favourite off -list recommendation to occupying a window office at hotel bar HQ. I’m yet to meet anyone who’s been there who doesn’t love it.
Address the flowers to Martin Siska and Yann Bouvignies, whose eight-year partnership at Scarfes’ helm saw much of the heavy lifting. Last year the bar celebrated 10 years and reached the hallowed realm of the World’s 50 Best Bars. As so often is the case, milestones become crossroads; within a year the bar team’s leaders had both departed. Bouvignies to Rosewood Amsterdam and Siska to Atlantis Dubai.
Was Scarfes about to have its Artesian moment? The wind escaping from the sails just as the bar was soaring. Those fears were allayed this summer by a figure on the horizon. Unbeknown to many, Andy Loudon had left Singapore, where he’d been working at Tippling Club and more recently Singapore’s bar-scene architects Proof & Co, and returned home. Not to Scunthorpe from where he hails, or even Manchester where he’d cut his teeth, but London, where his career had taken off. It was working at Satan’s Whiskers when he competed in – and won – the Havana Club Grand Prix in Cuba 2014 in. I know, because that’s where I first met him.
Around that time, another bar was launching - Scarfes at Rosewood London. Giancarlo Mancino, through his work with the hotel, was the first to invite me there – and it had me at the entrance. There are few, even to this day, more glorious things than the scene on entry – the woodwork, the chandeliers, the long bar with its tartan-sporting bartenders and the musicians all combine deliciously. Every seat at Scarfes feels ringside. And, of course, there’s the Gerald Scarfe artwork that lends a sense of individuality and character that is so often missing in newer hotel bars.
The next steps
Even if you don’t know the name Gerald Scarfe, likely you’ve seen his work. Mohamed Ali, John Lennon, Arnold Schwarzenegger… Scarfe has done them all, in a 60-year body of work spanning Time magazine, The New Yorker, Private Eye, The Sunday Times. But don’t take my word for it – we hear directly from him, in the adjoining interview (see below).
So Scarfes had the theme, it had the décor, it had the clientele and it certainly had the standards. Loudon has to maintain them, but having worked in other 50 Best-end venues, he is someone who knows the world he’s stepping into. And besides, he’s backed by a leadership team who know their way around. Kristijonas Bazys has bags of experience – with stints in Scottish hotel bars and at London’s Fitz’s – and in his 18 months as bar manager, he’s played an instrumental role in introducing the latest menu, overseeing activations and directing strategy for the team. While Nóra Földvári (Oriole and Laki Kane) joined the bar in 2001 and is now assistant bar manager. She’s the people person, managing guests and making sure that one of the most silky bar experiences runs as smoothly as ever.
Loudon’s first job is to not change things. “First of all, Martin and Yann did an amazing job here, building the brand of Scarfes to be one of the best bars in the world,” says Loudon. “So the first objective is to maintain what we do. The next thing will be to focus on the culture – make sure this is an environment where people want to come to work every single day, put their best into every single service, and be the best that they can possibly be.”
Only weeks into the job, Loudon knows he’s walked into a settled, high-functioning environment. “Kris is an amazing person to work with. He’s very good with numbers – he likes to call himself the numbers guy – and he’s good at running the venue as well. Nora’s also great – she heads up training and building the team.
She also runs the Bar Academy here, where every staff presents on different drinks subjects – which has been great for building knowledge and presentation techniques among the team.”
Slowly, Loudon will make his mark. “Hopefully I’m able to intertwine all my different experiences, from classical drinks at Satan’s Whiskers to scientific, technique-driven drinks at Colebrook Row and Tippling Club in Singapore, to consulting with Proof & Co, where I learned how concepts work as part of venues – and how not to shoehorn elements in.”
At Scarfes the theme is immutable – it’s a high-class hotel bar with Gerald Scarfe artwork and that’s not going to change.
“The bar is obviously centred heavily around Gerald Scarfe and there’s a lot of content he’s produced throughout his life that’s not been explored through cocktails as yet.” That, six months out from his first menu launch and a few weeks short of getting sign-off, is as much of a sniff of the big idea as we’re going to get. But it’s fair to deduce that the future direction is going to be closer to, not further away from, the Scarfes playbook. Besides, we are only six months into the 2024 menu, From Scratch.
Loudon says the drinks will bring a “freshness” and a “sense of place”. Part of that means more British ingredients – his face lights up at the idea of Cornish lemons – and in terms of style, be it classical or technique driven, or a mixture of both, the drinks will have to be in keeping.
“There’s a golden thread that ties from concept to venue, through everything we do. For every decision we will ask: how does it relate back to Gerald Scarfe, to the old-school gentlemen’s club, the drawing room, the jazz bar? How does every part of our programme link back to those defining concepts?”
More of the same isn’t exactly a compelling headline, but for Loudon, Bazys and Foldvari it’s a pretty good place to start. if anything, their job is to make Scarfes more Scarfes.
GERALD SCARFE X CLASS
How did your relationship with Scarfes Bar come about?
When Rosewood Hotels & Resorts first told me it would like to name the bar in its new hotel on London’s High Holborn after me, Scarfes Bar, I thought – why? Am I a renowned alcoholic? I went to meet Matthias Roeke, the managing director at the time, before the opening of this grand building which had previously housed Pearl Assurance.
It was still being converted, with painters and carpenters hard at work. Matthias showed me around and explained that Rosewood Hotels & Resorts also owned The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel in New York, where The New Yorker cartoonist Bemelmans had decorated its walls in the 1930s with his paintings – the well-known Bemelmans Bar – and wanted to repeat the experience with me.
Matthias explained that the theme should be ‘British’. So soon afterwards I set to work on various British personalities: the Royal Family, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and politicians of that time, including Blair and Cameron. There were also large canvasses showing images I designed for Pink Floyd, and the designs I had made for Disney’s Hercules. It was great fun.”
Over your career you’ve illustrated many of the world's foremost stars and political leaders. Do you have any favourites?
I have had the privilege of meeting and drawing portraits of some of the most famous and influential people. Most people have a reaction to their portraits: I have always liked, if possible, to get the drawings signed to show that they were done from life.
Not all were pleased with their portraits – in Boston, Mohammed Ali said angrily: ”I’m prettier than that!”. In Cannes, Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that “my lips are too big”. He was right, they were, but he signed it anyway. For Time magazine, I drew the Beatles while they were filming Help!. John Lennon told me: “You’re a cynic, like me, Gerald.” Too true. Ringo asked me to sketch him directly on to his drawing room wall at his home in Weybridge.
Also, Time commissioned the economist JK Galbraith in Chicago and comedians Rowan and Martin on Dan Rowan’s yacht, sailing the Pacific off California. Famous painter Mark Rothko growled “I don’t like it!” and wouldn’t sign it. President Lyndon Johnson signed “My Best”. Nixon asked “Are your pencils sharp today, Gerry?”. They were! From musicians like Leonard Bernstein at the New York Met, Dave Brubeck, whom I sketched while I sat on stage next to his piano at a live performance at London’s Festival Hall, to the great composer Igor Stravinsky, who wouldn’t sign it. “I didn’t draw it,“ he said. Quite true.
Others, like Bobby Kennedy, in whose private jet I flew to sketch him for Fortune magazine, was charisma and charm personified. I always carried a small notebook and I was surreptitiously sketching Prince Philip at a gallery opening when an equerry came over and menacingly whispered in my ear to “please stop it”, as I had “incurred the royal displeasure”. I stopped, otherwise I guess it would have been The Tower.
How did you find illustrating for Class?
It was a pleasure to draw Andy, Nora and Kris. They are charming people, as you will see when you visit my bar. We visit the bar when in London – it’s wonderful to have a second home: they are the friendliest staff and there’s always that welcome glass of champagne.