This swig of rum, served with lime, salt and coffee, will be among the surprises unveiled at Wednesday’s dinner.
What most people know of South American drinking culture typically boils down to a handful of things – cachaca and the Caiparinha cocktail, pisco and the Pisco Sour.
Daniel Guillen, the former beverage director for La Duni restaurants and one of Dallas’ more innovative bar talents, is on a mission to change that. For several years, driven by a notion that has since become a passion, the Peruvian-born bar man has been researching South American cocktail tradition; with his departure from La Duni, he’s ready to spring his knowledge loose upon the world in a series of events that will roll out in the coming weeks.
Your first chance to experience the fruits of his obsession will be Wednesday, when Guillen pairs up with Twenty Seven chef David Anthony Temple for a six-course dinner titled “The South American Gentleman’s Companion,” named after Charles Baker’s legendary cocktail tome of 1951.
The event will be a tour de force for the 27-year-old Guillen, who puts as much thought into presenting his cocktails as he does into making them. We’re talking about drinks served in everything from tin cans to test tubes – but as always, there is method to his madness: In addition to showcasing the continent’s drinking traditions, he’s equally amped about reflecting South American street culture.
“It’s what you see when you go out of the house and grab your first bus to work,” said Guillen, who you’ll now find occasionally behind the bar at Proof + Pantry, in the Arts District. “Street cart vendors, little candy carts near the schools – you can apply those things and come up with something off the charts.”
Guillen, formerly of La Duni and now doing time at Proof + Pantry, has a wealth of South American knowledge to share.
Guillen’s libations will be paired with Chef DAT’s Latin-inspired fare, including BBQ’s gnocchi, roasted cabrito, coconut-encrusted cod and smoked duck breast tostadas.
The 7 pm reservations-only dinner is limited to 35 people and will take place at Twenty Seven, 2901 Elm Street in Deep Ellum. Price is $120 plus gratuity.
Doors open for dinner at 6 with an aperitif to start. Reservations can be made via credit card at rsvp@twentysevendallas.com.
Can’t make dinner? You can still sample a lineup of South American-inspired cocktails and other surprises at a public post-dinner reception at 10 pm, with special prices for dinner guests. Think Argentinian Boilermakers, a South American Old Fashioned and Guillen’s celebrated Rosemary’s Affair, which earned him regional honors from Bombay Sapphire gin and was among my favorite cocktails of 2013.
Esteemed barman Charlie Papaceno: No longer tilting at the Windmill.
Charlie Papaceno has officially left the venerable Windmill Lounge to launch a new project, marking an end to one of the craft-cocktail scene’s longest-running tenures.
The bespectacled barman will be missed, having been a droll and steady presence at the landmark lounge he co-founded nine years ago with then-wife Louise Owens. Though the two eventually divorced, they continued to operate the bar as business partners, a relationship they managed to negotiate for some time.
Papaceno, who has a new bar in the works in Dallas’ Cedars neighborhood, had effectively paved the way for his departure with the hiring earlier this year of Nora’s Michael Reith at the Windmill. But his exit earlier this week came to pass without fanfare or farewell.
That’s fine with the under-the-radar Papaceno, who has fond memories of the dive-y Dallas institution named among Esquire magazine’s best bars in 2013. “The Windmill’s great,” he says. “Look what it’s become. I feel like we cut a new path in this town that wasn’t there before.”
And they did: Papaceno and Owens opened the Windmill in 2005 on a dingy stretch of Maple Avenue after Papaceno was laid off from a corporate gig, freeing him up to pursue a longtime dream. His classic-drink know-how would help make the unassuming lounge essentially Dallas’ first craft-cocktail establishment, even though it never promoted itself as much more than your basic watering hole. It became a mainstay and occasional playground for those scattered upstarts who would eventually lead the city out of its craft-cocktail wasteland toward the vibrant scene it has now become – people like Parliament’s Eddie “Lucky” Campbell; Proof + Pantry’s Michael Martensen; and The 86 Co.’s Jason Kosmas, co-founder of Manhattan’s famous Employees Only, freshly arrived from New York.
The no-frills bar, with its angry jukebox and come-as-you-are regulars, has remained a favored hangout for local craft bartenders, but whether that status continues in Papaceno’s absence remains to be seen.
Papaceno says his new place, whose name has yet to be finalized, will hopefully open by year’s end. “It’ll be funky and homey,” he says. In other words, just like the Windmill. “Hopefully people will feel comfortable there.”
She’s over here: Lauren Festa, now at The Mansion.
Bar peeps are on the move again.
If you’ve been looking for Lauren Festa, who until recently was working mushroom and elderflower wonders at FT33, she’s now overseeing the bar program at The Rosewood Mansion at Turtle Creek. It’s a much-heralded place in Dallas bar lore, having been presided over by some of the city’s most respected mixerati – names like Michael Martensen, Lucky Campbell and Rocco Milano. “An opportunity like this doesn’t come around very often,” Festa said just before leaving FT33 – and spied not long ago, the hospitality-minded bartender seemed content to have ditched the chain mail of her former Design District home for the proper vest of her dark, new Uptown den. She was expecting to roll out her new cocktail menu by last week.
From Knife to Spoon: Bartender James Slater
Another new lineup of libations is up and running at Spoon Bar & Kitchen, where James Slater is the new bar program manager. When chef John Tesar opened Knife in the Palomar Hotel space where Central 214 used to be, Slater was among the bartenders who made the jump. The understated Panamanian is an able bar man and now has a chance to make his mark at Tesar’s acclaimed seafood restaurant in North Dallas.
After a nice stint with Rocco Milano at Barter, Stephen Halpin has joined the crew at Parliament, the craft-cocktail pearl that itinerant barman Eddie “Lucky” Campbell has spent the last year or so forming in Uptown’s State and Allen area. Formerly of Whiskey Cake, the Irish-born Halpin has proven himself an adept mixologist and should find a worthy challenge in Parliament’s extensive tome of tipples when the bar opens this week.
He’s a member of Parliament now: Bartender Stephen Halpin.
Joining Halpin at Parliament is Will Croxville, fresh from Libertine Bar and a stretch last year with the celebrated Bar Smyth. Croxville has the distinction of preparing to adjust his schedule around the nearly simultaneous openings of two highly anticipated Dallas bars: He’ll also be doing time at Proof + Pantry, Michael Martensen’s long-awaited spot in the Arts District, which officially opens Wednesday.
Perhaps you’ve noticed the absence of another bearded chap at Barter; Brad Bowden, a veteran of The People’s Last Stand, says that’s because he’s lying in wait for his new gig at Midnight Rambler at the Joule Hotel. The coming speakeasy-style bar is the venture of Chad Solomon and Christy Pope, whose Cuffs and Buttons cocktail consulting firm has put its stamp on many a bar program throughout the Dallas area.
Ramblin’ Man: Brad Bowden, formerly of Barter, is on his way downtown.
In other news, Chase Streitz, the former bar manager at Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, has been spotted behind the bar at The Standard Pour (where Cody Sharp, former sous chef at the excellent Casa Rubia in Trinity Groves, has taken over the kitchen). And finally, when we last saw Matt Perry, he was making the most of the tiny bar space at Belly & Trumpet, Apheleia Restaurant Group’s restaurant in Uptown; after the briefest of cameos at Oak – one of Apheleia’s two Design District restaurants – he’s now behind the better-than-average bar at Neighborhood Services on Lovers Lane.
Libertine’s lead barman in his laboratory — but not for much longer. (Photo by Jason Raney)
I’m sitting with another right now and all I can think about is you. Your curves: finer. Your colors: brighter. Tucked into every pocket of a memory, some drop of precious time holding echoes of so many bright moments. Warmth and comfort lined with intrigue and amazement, there is no inch of you that has not sat silent vigil to the chaotic magic of a serendipitous night. Some light up a room when they walk into it, but you, you are the room. You have seen me in the most revealing moments of the triumph of gravity over a single stubborn object more times than I would wish. You have also watched me stand many times my height with steel in my gaze and lead in my feet. I have watched over you as you gave warmth to many in a dim cold haze and I have seen you let the wind wildly shake tail over every curve and dimension. The days you cracked, tore and buckled – but never fell – charged me with the same will. You showed me the pain of compassion in the witness of true loss. Truly there is no light I have not seen you in but always in the most intimate of proximity. Soon that will become distance; familiarity, perspective; and responsibility, pride. I can’t say goodbye because you will be the object of my many thousand-yard gazes. Hopefully tomorrow we will have the perspective to see how much we were for each other yesterday.
Your barman true, Máté Hartai
You’ll have to forgive Máté Hartai if he’s got some strong feelings about the Libertine, the Lower Greenville institution whose bar program he’s headed for the last several years. In that time, disguised as merely a popular neighborhood bar, the Libertine has instead been the Trojan Horse in our midst: Under Hartai’s stewardship, both its beer and cocktail selections have emerged as among the most daring and erudite in DFW, and yet its subtle bearing, modest location and reluctance to promote itself as much more than a community servant conspired to curb it off the star-bar radar.
Cellared beers, morel-mushroom-infused rye, beer- and cocktail-paired dinners – Hartai had them all underway before they were trendy around these parts.
But the moment has come, Hartai says, to – well, he can’t even say the words. Not to move on – no, to move in a different direction. The Cold Standard, the nascent ice enterprise he’s been nurturing for several years is demanding more and more of his attention, as are other projects he’s got in the works, so…
“It’s time to let the Libertine go,” says the Hungarian-born Hartai, who joined the Libertine as a bar-back in 2009. “I’ve trained that baby to where it can run on its own.”
Tuesday, May 27, will be Hartai’s final day at the Libertine (his final day behind the bar will be Sunday the 25th), and fittingly his stint will end with one of the bar’s signature dinners – this one a Utah-themed event featuring both of his passions, beer and spirits.(Click the link above, then the box to the right.) It’s also his birthday, and Hartai is letting it all out, planning to unveil some of his rarest cellar keepsakes.
“It’s the bridging of two things I’m passionate about,” he says. “The beer is going to be out of this world.”
Hartai, whose family came to the U.S. when he was a middle-schooler – “just young enough to lose my accent,” he says – is among the most knowledgeable of bartenders, quirky and wonkish, with a nerdy, scientific approach to his work. When Bar Smyth, the Knox-Henderson speakeasy to which Hartai was briefly attached, was invited to compete against other bars at a national cocktail-industry convention last year, it was he who devised the ingenious backpack keg with which he waded through the crowds with his Texas-stamped helmet, pouring cocktail shots.
In an industry where mobility is a constant, Hartai was a mark of steadiness and community involvement, even as he shunned social media — he had to be goaded into joining Facebook — and self-promotion. Within bartending circles, his grasp of the craft is well known.
“Everybody on this side knows what Máté has been doing,” said Eddie Eakin, bar manager at Oak Cliff’s Boulevardier. “He’s intelligent, he’s cutting edge. Definitely among the upper crust in Dallas.”
Yet some still scoff when Eakin directs them to the Libertine for cocktails, deceived by the bar’s unassuming presence. By excelling in all areas – including its solid kitchen – it couldn’t be pegged as making its “thing” any single one of them.
“It’s one of the most well-rounded bars in the city,” says bar manager Ryan Sumner of Driftwood. “If you open up a neighborhood bar – that’s what it should be.”
Hartai’s budding ice enterprise, The Cold Standard, demands more attention. (Kara Edwards photo)
As the Dallas cocktail scene exponentially matured behind names like Michael Martensen, Brian McCullough and Charlie Papaceno, Hartai always viewed the Libertine, with its homey, den-like atmosphere, as a place to feel comfortable enough to take those first few steps into a much deeper pool of alcohol knowledge. Co-owners Simon McDonald and Michael Smith trusted his oddball seasonal menu inspirations, with experiments like the cocktails named after Smiths song titles; you wouldn’t know what you got until you actually ordered the drink.
Libertine’s classic cocktail menu has stayed the course since Hartai instituted it, but that’s since been supplemented by bar favorites and other rotating theme menus like “By Friends, For All,” a tribute lineup with cocktails designed by fellow craft-cocktail bartenders like Trina Nishimura and Julian Pagan. “The Brave, The Bold” featured Hartai creations named the Coburn, the Bronson, the McQueen and the Brynner with ingredients like pulled-pork-infused tequila and five-spice rum. “All it is, is a liquid kitchen to me,” he says.
He’s loved his job, he says – and why shouldn’t he? He gets to throw a party every day. But in moving on, Hartai will leave behind a consummate bar – not a great beer bar, not a great cocktail bar, but a great all-around hangout. He’s eager to see the Libertine continue to develop without him, supported by a training program he willfully built over time. “There’s a lot of talent in that house,” he says.
Co-owner McDonald wishes Hartai the best, knowing that he helped build the bar into what it is today. “He’s a really smart guy who just worked his way into knowing everything about everything,” McDonald said. “But he’s so humble about it.”
No matter where he lands, Hartai says, it won’t be for long. “I like being behind the bar too much,” he says. “It’s like when you cut down Obi-Wan: I’m going from being the old man in the robe to being the blue glowie.”
The May 27 dinner begins at 7 p.m. and seating is limited. The price is $60 a person – more than worth the opportunity to wish Hartai a happy birthday and see the Jedi in his temple one last time.
“It’s the culmination of everything I’ve been working for,” he says. “It’s gonna be a magical night for me.”
LIBERTINE BAR, 2101 Greenville Avenue. 214-824-7900.
Hartai and Sean Conner, formerly of Plano’s Whiskey Cake, beat a punch-cooler drum roll at last summer’s Tales of The Cocktail festival in New Orleans.
Omar, we hardly knew ye: YeeFoon, The 86 Co.’s new Texas state ambassador.
The spirits scene is fluid. People move around, and maybe you’ve lost track of a few. Barmoire is here to help you out.
Last month came the official news that bartender extraordinaire Michael Martensen planned to open Proof + Pantry at One Arts Plaza; that’s still on track, with the space – formerly the Commissary – opening hopefully before summer. But while Martensen had hoped to reassemble the fine crew of bar talent that had formerly held sway at The Cedars Social and Bar Smyth, it appears at least one band member won’t be joining the reunion: Omar YeeFoon, who is joining Jason Kosmas’ The 86 Co. as Texas brand ambassador.
“I’ll be working with friends,” YeeFoon said last week over pasta and cocktails at the Windmill Lounge’s inaugural Spaghetti + Western night. “And it’s a product and a brand I believe in.”
Movin’ up the chain: Wilson, bar programs director for Fork It Over Restaurants. (Courtesy of Fork It Over Restaurants)
Meanwhile, Bonnie Wilson, the bartender who helped put Whiskey Cake on the cocktails map in Plano before taking over the bar program at The Ranch at Las Colinas, is now bar programs director for the entire group of Fork It Over Restaurants, which includes Mexican Sugar and Velvet Taco. Fork It Over has already expanded the Whiskey Cake brand to Oklahoma City and will soon open one in San Antonio.
Representin’: Farm-fresh-minded Amber West now with Vermont’s Caledonia Spirits
We’ve also missed the upbeat presence of Amber West, former lead bartender at Central 214 at the Hotel Palomar whose garden-to-bar enthusiasm never failed to mesmerize. West is now Texas brand ambassador for Caledonia Spirits, the Vermont-based company that produces honey-tinged Barr Hill Gin and other liquid goodies soon to appear in bars and restaurants around the state. She and her new portfolio were behind the cocktails at last Saturday’s Polo On the Lawn fundraiser in Oak Point.
She’d met Caledonia founder Todd Hardie through former Central 214 chef Graham Dodds; their similar views forged a connection. “Caledonia Spirits is all about his connection with the land, beekeeping and farming,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
If you’ve been looking for this guy, he’s taken his talents to Maple Avenue.
Meanwhile, for those who’ve been wondering whatever happened to bartender Michael Reith, the man whose drinks once shone at Lower Greenville’s Nora, the low-key barman has resurfaced at the esteemed Windmill Lounge on Maple Avenue, where he was last seen firing up cider-y accompaniments for the divey spot’s just-launched, above-mentioned Spaghetti + Western dinners on Mondays.
Booze news and adventures in cocktailing, based In Dallas, Texas, USA. By Marc Ramirez, your humble scribe and boulevardier. All content and photos mine unless otherwise indicated. http://typewriterninja.com
