Animal magic: Celebrity mixologist Tony Conigliaro is teaming up with Rob Roy Cameron
Master mixologist Tony Conigliaro is teaming up with chef Rob Roy Cameron to open Gazelle, a Mayfair restaurant promising outlandish and innovative cocktails and modern dishes to match. Tom Vaughan met up with the two self-confessed ‘flavourists' to learn what they have in store
"Snow tastes of enoki mushrooms!" whoops Tony Conigliaro. The much-vaunted mixologist is telling the story behind one of his most famous creations, the cocktail ‘Snow'. It all began a few years ago, when he showed his team at the Drink Factory a picture of someone with a snowflake on their tongue. "I wanted to know: How could we turn that into a drink?" Turning a sensation into a series of flavours turned out to be a nearly impossible task: it took over two years and came close to defeating them. "Then one night at 2am, I got this crazy text from Zoe [Burgess, operations director]," he explains. "She was on holiday in Norway. It just said: ‘Snow tastes like enoki mushrooms!' Immediately, I knew she was right. I was so excited I got out of bed and did a dance!"
Sat in the corner of his bijou Bar Termini, espresso cup in tattooed hand, hipster beard trimmed to perfection, denim jacket, rings et al, Conigliaro is very much a 21st-century restaurateur. And fans of the oft-labelled 'celebrity bartender' - and there are many - will be cockahoop that he is opening his biggest operation yet. This is the man whose Champagne cocktail Twinkle is a permanent best-seller at the famously boozy Groucho Club. Who at one point had three bars in the World's Best 50 Bars.
It's not just any area of London that Gazelle is hoping to make a splash - but its most prestigious. Conigliaro's other bars include the achingly hip, concrete minimalist Untitled in London's Dalston and Soho's Bar Termini - but where is he eyeing up for his first full-on restaurant? Hackney? Fitzrovia, maybe? Nope: Mayfair. Home of the business lunch. The straights. The suits. That Mayfair.
It's a bold move, but does it represent something of a gamble for the pair, sailing their avante-garde offering into an area of London not known for its bohemian tendencies? "I don't think so," replies Conigliaro. "I think a company strength is our ability to appreciate what's in an area and ask, what are people looking for? Bar Termini started out as a conversation of where can you get a decent coffee and cocktail in Soho that's not a members' club. With Gazelle, we're going for a different clientele - the arty crowd, the fashionistas. Everyone I've spoken to has said, 'thank God you're opening in Mayfair because there is nowhere there where we would go'.I think we will be unique for the area."
The restaurant, which is set on Albemarle Street, has been in the making for two years, he says, ever since he was approached by the owners of the street to come up with an offering that fitted in with the high-end Italian clothes shops. Privately funded, it occupies the first and second floor of a Georgian townhouse and comprises a 40-cover restaurant and a 60-cover bar where his creations will take centre stage. "We've literally spent 10 months writing the bar menu," he says. "They'll be a few Tony numbers, including an improved version of the Twinkle. Sometimes it's nice to look back at something that's really simple and ask 'How can I make it better?' Elderflower, vodka, Champagne - it's just three ingredients. We asked ourselves, how can we make it sing like no one else has done? And that process has taken 10 months."
Meanwhile, downstairs, the restaurant will provide an opportunity for the South African, Spanish-trained Rob Roy Cameron - who counts a season at El Bulli and a Michelin star at Barcelona's Hoja Santa on his CV - to showcase his modern European cooking. How have the pair ended up working together?
Gazelle48 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4DHCovers restaurant: 40; bar: 60 Average spend £75 before drinks Example dishes⢠- Halibut, orange, elderflower ⢠- Pigs' tails, Manhattan ⢠- Monkfish, burnt seeds ⢠- Sesame, mango, pink pepper Example cocktails â¢Â Babydoll: rum, rhubarb liqueur, lemon, egg white ⢠- Dreaming of salmon: whisky, plum shrub ⢠- Twinkle: elderflower, Perrier JouÁ«t, vodka, lemon twist
Tony Conigliaro
Rob Roy Cameron
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