Selected work
Programs with a public record.
Five programs, four cities, three continents. Each case below follows the same honest structure — the brief we walked into, what we actually did, and what changed. Every ranking and award is public; look any of them up.
Lost & Found Drinkery
Nicosia, CY · 2014 — 2022 · Head bartender, founding team
Lost & Found Drinkery — the room itself. Photo: via 50 Best Discovery.
From a side-street twenty-seater to #25 in the world.
The brief
A twenty-seat bar tucked off a side street in old Nicosia, opening into a market where cocktail culture meant vodka and Red Bull. No international bar from Cyprus had ever registered on the global stage. The ambition was absurd on paper: build a world-list bar in a city the bar world had never once looked at.
What we did
- Built the bar program from zero as head bartender and founding-team member: a tight, technique-led repertoire rather than an encyclopedic list
- Developed prep systems that let a tiny room deliver world-class consistency night after night
- Trained a team on a simple doctrine — call regulars by name before they reach the stool, and never serve a drink you can’t serve twice
- Evolved the menu annually for eight years, keeping a small bar interesting to an international audience that had already seen everything
What changed
- First Cypriot bar ever to make the World’s 50 Best Bars list (2015) — then held a place on the lists for nine consecutive years (2015–2023)
- Peaked at #25 in the world, 2018
- Two Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards Top 10 nominations in the same year — Best International Cocktail Bar and Best International Bar Team (2018), in a cohort with Manhattan Bar Singapore, the Connaught, and the Savoy’s American Bar
- Featured in Difford’s Guide, Bargiornale, and Parikiaki
Here Nor There / In Plain Sight
Austin, TX · 2022 — 2023 · Consulting — menu, COGS, training
Here Nor There, Austin. Photo: via 50 Best Discovery.
A national name within twelve months.
The brief
Two rooms at one downtown Austin address — Here Nor There, the hidden-entry, reservation-only speakeasy flagship, and In Plain Sight, its aperitivo-style sister bar. Ambitious drinks, real talent, and the classic growth problem: a menu whose prep load and pour costs hadn’t been engineered to match its ambition.
What we did
- Audited the running menu across live service — prep efficiency, pour costs, and where the drinks were quietly bleeding margin
- Fixed COGS drink by drink: re-costed specs, tightened batching, and rebuilt prep workflows so the ambitious builds could run at Friday volume
- Trained the team on the techniques the program demanded, so execution didn’t depend on any one bartender
- Helped develop the next menu — technique development, prep workflows, and specs built to survive nightly service
What changed
- In Plain Sight named a Spirited Awards 2023 U.S. Regional Top 10 Honoree — Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar — within twelve months
- Coverage in The Infatuation, Austin Chronicle, and Eater Austin
- The rooms became the place Austin bartenders go on their own nights off — the industry’s honest review
Vine Bar
New York, US · 2024 — 2025 · Menu development & team training
Vine Bar, Brooklyn. Photo: vinebk.com.
An ambitious menu that survived a full room.
The brief
A New York bar ready to push past the expected, wanting a list built on new techniques and unexpected flavors — without the usual fate of ambitious menus, which is dying quietly three weeks after launch when the prep collapses under a full room.
What we did
- Created the Explorers menu from concept to nightly service — a highly innovative list built around new techniques and unexpected flavor pairings
- Wrote complete recipe specs with costings, so every drink had a margin target before it had a garnish
- Built the prep workflows that made the innovation servable — batching, clarification, and mise en place scaled to the room
- Trained the team on every build and the techniques behind them, then trained them to train the next hire
What changed
- The Explorers menu ran as designed — full ambition, nightly service, no quiet simplification after launch
- Consistency held after the engagement ended: the specs, costings, and training stayed with the house
- The bar’s program moved from “good neighborhood bar” to destination list — drinks people cross the river for
Tocayo
Nicosia, CY · 2020 — 2022 · Bar program & cocktail menu, from concept
Tocayo, Nicosia. Photo: Cesoro Group.
Best New Restaurant, with the bar to match.
The brief
One of Nicosia’s most ambitious restaurant openings — a kitchen running on technique, sourcing, and quiet confidence. The brief: a bar that could keep pace with the food, in a market where restaurant cocktails were an afterthought printed on the back of the wine list.
What we did
- Built the beverage program from scratch: twelve drinks, every one defensible against the room
- Paired the list to the food, not to trends — with the same seasonal turnover the chef demanded of the kitchen
- Engineered service-volume prep from day one: every cocktail prepped, batched where integrity allowed, plated within thirty seconds in service
- Trained the opening team and left them the spec book
What changed
- Best New Restaurant Cyprus, 2021
- Sustained press across Cypriot food and lifestyle media
- A bar program that outlived the engagement — the standard the room still serves to
Casa de Cuba
Abu Dhabi, AE · 2019 · Full opening program
Atmospheric image — venue closed; no official photography available.
A rum program built for volume, in a market that doesn’t default to it.
The brief
An Abu Dhabi venue trading on a deep Caribbean catalog, in a market that doesn’t default to spirit-forward drinking and a climate that punishes delicate builds. Friday nights here mean covers NYC operators don’t typically forecast for.
What we did
- Built the full opening program — concept, cocktail and rum menu, supplier setup, team training, and opening-week support
- Wrote a list that reads as a single editorial: heavy on long-aged rums, smoked syrups, and tropical acids that survive the temperature differential between bar and table
- Designed every build for service volume against an international guest base
- Trained for speed under pressure — technique that holds at five hundred covers
What changed
- A spirit-forward rum program that worked commercially in a market that wasn’t supposed to want one
- Volume-ready builds — the menu’s ambition never throttled the room’s capacity
- The full playbook — specs, prep, training — handed to the house team at close