We recently had a chat with the highly charismatic Remy Savage at a masterclass at Bar Trigona, expounding his unique vision of melding art, philosophy, and mixology. A champion of progressive attitudes, he pushes the envelope blurring the lines between art and lived in experiences, going so far as creating menus that make you think, even letting it be dictated by the wisdom of crowds. Here’s our candid conversation.
How long have you been in this industry?
16 years. I was at the Artesian right before opening Shapes. There were two years in between, we had a pandemic in between and stuff. During this time, I was working a little bit in Paris for Le Syndicat. I was doing a lot of little things to pay the bills.
How would you compare the London bar scene to the Paris bar scene?
That’s a great question. I think in London everything is far. London is a big city. Paris is a tiny city. I think they’re quite similar to an extent. You get a lot of tourists and dedicated guests for sure. London is a bit more advanced in terms of the regular cocktail drinkers, whereas in Paris it’s still evolving. Moscow Mules are still popular.
One thing I noticed in Paris, bars like Little Red Door seem to cater to an international crowd?
I think Parisians don’t like to queue, so they don’t go to Little Red Door as much. France is a wine country. It’s a country of grapes, cognac, wine, Armagnac, all the kinds of eau de vie. Many French people drink cocktails, so its growing, but I think perhaps a little behind. They’re just starting to love negronis now. I think that if you want to drink, Paris is a gorgeous city. It’s got so many good ones like one of my favourites, Harry’s New York Bar. There’s a lot of old school places if you want to drink wine or champagne, Paris is a great city to be tipsy in.
So how do you find the Malaysian bar scene?
I only visited Penrose, PS 150, Jaan in Four Points and BAC. I think Penrose looks like a bar you’ll find in London. It’s well executed and very forward thinking. Jann is a hotel bar, but for me, it’s always difficult to judge a hotel bar, it’s never the expression of one person. BAC was like a rough party. It was almost an after-party vibe run by a London guy as well, so obviously it’s easier to connect. I think it’s fun, but what I’ve seen so far is very diverse and it’s very different than what it was four years ago.
I was really interested with your presentation because it felt more like a philosophical lecture actually. I never realised how deep your concepts are.
As I said, I think it’s impossible to separate them. Because I think if we just talk purely about bar stuff, I find it boring. Again, if we talk purely about philosophy stuff, I find it boring. I think it’s just like if you manage to bring an element of playfulness to philosophy and an element of philosophy into playfulness, I think you can have a great time.
Shapes is a great bar in London and very much a very strong industry bar.
I think we have a late license, so it’s somewhere where you can have a drink at five in the morning and you can get a decent drink if you want to. But you know, nobody is going to be mean to you if you get a beer or gin and tonic.
That’s where I had the Kazimir, and I remember it till now from 2 years ago, it’s a brilliant drink.
It’s one of the best drinks I’ve ever made. I have another one called Pastel, also delicious. Not here tonight but you need to try the stuff we do at Bar Nuveau. This is the fun thing, that you always adapt drinks and everything adapts from one place to another. The uniforms for Bar Nuveau are going to be inspired by the art movement.
Do you work much with the food industry?
I want to say no, but we do. Last year we did one with Martell, we made a drink for the Michelin ceremony.
How did your relationship with Martell build?
I have always love cognac, and I think that I’ve very often been the French guy in a crowd of non-French people. I like cognac, and I say it not because I’m French. I think as a spirit, it’s very easy to work with. For example, I don’t love anything that tastes too strong.
Do you like working with cocktails?
I don’t think I’m refusing to accept that I work with cocktails. Like, I don’t do cocktail bars, I don’t like the idea. Now that we’ve gone so far in the fact that cocktails are part of culture more and more, you can go to a restaurant and have a cocktail. I like to think all my favourite bars in most cities are not cocktail bars anymore.
So what kind of bars do you like?
In Paris, wine bars. But there’s so many beautiful bars, in Barcelona, I like Brutal. Let’s say in Paris, you go to Harry’s, I think it’s one of the best bars in the universe. Genuinely, people hate it. I love it. It’s just the fact that they don’t have a rotovap and it looks like an American bar. But you know what I mean? We put so much focus onto the cocktails. The only thing that you can’t buy is history. Right? You can buy a concept design for your bar, you can buy all of this stuff… its just money. The bar was from New York in the 20s, when Prohibition hits and they just took all of things, that is why all the American universities on the wall.