I want to tell you about the most frustrating moment in the development of the Nectar cocktail menu. We were in the final days before opening. One cocktail still needed to be finalised, the one that would pair with the prawns that were on our opening menu at the time. We had been working across multiple drinks, Panos and I, running infusions, tasting, adjusting, the way you are supposed to develop a cocktail. I had spent weeks getting to the point where I understood the logic

The old fashioned is my favourite cocktail. It is Panos's favourite too. We agree on very little when it comes to what should go on the Nectar menu, which is why the drinks programme is as good as it is, but on this we have always been aligned. The old fashioned is the drink that, when everything else has been considered and ordered and discussed, is the one we both end up coming back to. Which makes it slightly embarrassing that it took us a year to put one on the menu. Not

One of the first guests to try the Bees Essence described it in a way that has stayed with me. They said they had never had a cocktail that keeps going the way this one does. First there is whisky. Then there is sweetness. Then there is spice. And as the spice fades, the other flavours come back. Not a diminishing experience but a circular one, each element returning in sequence, the drink still unfolding long after the glass is empty. That description is more accurate than a

The Local Connection is a white negroni. That is the most accurate short description of it. It is also not quite like any white negroni you have tried before, because two of its four ingredients are unusual enough to deserve a proper explanation, and because the technique used to finish it changes the experience of drinking it in a way that the description on the menu does not fully prepare you for. Start with what you know, or what you think you know, and work outward from t

Some cocktails are created because a menu needs filling. Others arrive because someone set a challenge and the most interesting answer turned out not to be the one submitted. Fizz n Fig belongs firmly in the second category. It exists at Nectar not because it won anything, but because it survived something. And that story, it turns out, is more interesting than a trophy. The Competition That Started It The Diplomático Artisans of Taste is one of the more creatively demanding

Some cocktails are inspired by flavours. Others are inspired by techniques. The Lemon Cheesecake cocktail at Nectar is built around something more personal than either of those things. It is built around a memory. A specific evening, a specific table, and a dessert that took two days to make properly and became a family tradition almost by accident. This is the story behind it. The Thanksgiving Table Growing up, Thanksgiving was always celebrated at our home. Once a year, clo

There is a particular moment that happens at Nectar when the Tzatziki Martini arrives at a table for the first time. The glass is completely clear. Not pale yellow the way a gin martini is clear, and not cloudy the way you might expect something containing yogurt and cucumber and dill to look. Crystal clear. The kind of clarity that makes you hold it up to the light to confirm that something is actually in the glass. Then you take the first sip. The flavour arrives in a seque