Dorelli stands down at Savoy
After 40 years at the Savoy, Peter Dorelli has retired. The legendary cocktail maestro of the American Bar has put away his Boston shaker and is taking a break.
Not that he'll be off the scene for long. "I'm not finished yet - I still want to be a part of the energy," he enthuses, revealing plans to reshape the UK Bartenders Guild (he's still its president) and take part in a handful of consultancy deals.
So just how did 63-year-old Dorelli become such a legend? His upbringing could feature quite happily in a Harold Robbins novel. Dorelli grew up in Rome in a family of bankers and trained as an accountant, before upping sticks to Blighty. "It's a grave mistake to follow family tradition," he mutters, darkly. "I wanted to get out of there, and I had an uncle in England."
He started out in Knightsbridge, working for a company of accountants. "But it required a slice of brain I didn't possess," he laughs. So he bailed out for a procession of odd jobs - "I was a handyman, a washer-upper, and a boilerman - it was good for my biceps," he laughs - before ending up as a wine waiter at the Savoy in 1963.
At that time, Joe Gilmore was ruling the roost at the American Bar. "The king of kings," Dorelli acknowledges. "He taught me a lot." Dorelli switched from wine waiter to bar manager, running a bar (since closed) for the hotel group before filling Gilmore's shoes at the American Bar in 1980.
Dorelli has seen it all: "The sixties was a rather sweet time for cocktails; the seventies much drier - martinis and fizzes were the name of the game; then things got sweet again in the eighties when there was a boom in juice-based drinks, but it was all about volume, not quality; by the nineties the cocktail had regained its sanity and the cocktail-bar boom exploded. A younger generation became interested in cocktails and the creativity was - and still is - amazing.
"I believe London is the centre of cocktails now - we're the best. America copies us. New York the home of the cocktail? They haven't got a clue. You get huge glasses crammed full of ice and everything tastes diluted."
So what are some of Dorelli's favourite cocktail spots in town? "Lab bar, Hakkasan and Rockwell are all fantastic, but there are so many great bars here," he says. "If I have one criticism, it's that it would be nice if bar staff smiled a bit more. They're so serious and intense when making their cocktails they forget to interact with the customers."
Dorelli Dishes
Who do you most admire?
Salvatore Calabrese - he's amazing and he writes books like confetti. And Gilberto Preti (formerly of Dukes hotel in London) - he's stillthe king of the martini.
Drinks bible?The Savoy Cocktail Book, of course, but Jerry Thomas's Cocktail Book is a classic.
What's next?
I'll be holding educational courses for the UK Bartenders Guild - watch this space.
Favourite cocktail city? London - we're the best. America copies us.
Favourite London bars?
Hakkasan, Lab and Rockwell - but there are so many.
