Bar Manager Mustafa Tumburi takes us behind the scenes at 45 Jermyn St. Join us as we talk about sustainability in the drinks industry, ice-cream floats, his childhood and his formative years. But also cocktails and the best seats in the house.

Comms from the Shed: interviewing diverse voices on our present and the future.

Mustafa Tumburi - Bar Manager at 45 Jermyn St.

On meeting Mustafa (or ‘Musty’ as he’s known) for the first time, I sit as he makes me a #55 - and I learn that each number corresponds to something to do with the drink..."it's served with a shot of Cachaça, a variant of rum made in Brazil..and 55 is the country code for Brazil."

So I kick off with the obvious question…

What's your history with Fortnum’s?

"I joined in the winter of 2016, and I've been with the company six years. I started as a bartender...so when our Head Bartender moved to another position I took that role. When the Bar Manager left to work on a project with our Hong Kong team, I took over the position of Bar Manager"

How do responsibilities vary between the different bar roles?

"When you're a bartender you have to make sure that the limes are cut just right, otherwise the Bar Manager will have something to say about it...and in that role it's opening and closing duties, plus service. Also learning how to deal with the prep that goes into making all of our lovely ingredients. There's quite a lot to learn as I think there are about 15-16 different homemade ingredients in our menu.”

Once you become the Head Bar Tender it's your job to support the Bar Manager, and start ordering, but also being responsible for keeping the bar stocked. Once you get to Bar Manager you're partly responsible for the success of the Bar, and you have to lead the team, motivate and inspire them.”

Favourite things?

"One of my favourite things about 45 Jermyn St. is that we're very egalitarian when it comes to menu development. So everyone has a go. It doesn't matter if you're a junior bartender or you're a senior bartender, or if you're the Bar Manager, everybody has input into making our drinks.

As Bar Manager - when our people are developing drinks - what I try to do is guide their ideas and try to elevate them, but also ask them if they've tried pairing with other ingredients.”

Have we got a drink that's unique to 45 Jermyn St.?

"Yes! We've got a few. One drink I'd like to highlight...

We've been quite hot on re-use as part of our sustainability drive, so what we want to do is try to figure out any way that we can squeeze the last drop out of any ingredient. A good example of that is The Thicket. A cocktail originally developed for our FIELD restaurant, which we've started developing at 45 Jermyn St. as well. One of our ingredients is Raspberry cordial, and it shows up in our ice cream floats, and in our signature drinks such as our Negroni.

Previously when we made that we were throwing away a lot of sweetened raspberry seed pulp which was going straight to food waste. So we thought to ourselves - how can we use that again and get some more life out of it? So now, whenever we make a batch of raspberry cordial we split the pulp and half of it goes into a vat for use in our raspberry seed rum. The rest of the pulp is spread out onto silicone and dehydrated, and what we're left with is a lovely raspberry shard that's crunchy and sweet, but it still has some of the sharpness from the berries. We then pair that with amaretto, Peychaud's bitters and Fortnum's Rosé sparkling tea.”

How many total combinations of drinks do you need to be aware of?

"150 classics and 50 or so 'regionals'. For example if you worked in New England you should probably know how to make a Caesar, because everyone has Clam Chowder there. I now like to work to a tight edit of 100 classic cocktails. We have a classic cocktail 'Bible' for the bar, and add to that our menu which currently has approximately 27 cocktails. It was as many as 40 at one point.”

What else might people not know about the 45 Jermyn St. bar?

"Before 45 Jermyn St. was known as 45 Jermyn St. (the bar), it was known as 'The Fountain'. Almost like a 50s style American diner where you could get a Knickerbocker Glory. I believe the soda fountains in the bar were one of the first to feature in London at the time, they were custom made and came from the United States. So it's a very unique and retro feature that still exists and that we're lucky to have. The soda fountains are used for our ice cream floats, which are quite unique to Fortnum's. I'm actually the son of an ice-cream vendor, in fact I come from an ice-cream family. I remember my Dad saying to me - 'do you want to take over the family business?'...and I said, not on your life - I will never scoop a single ice-cream ever again! Flash forward to 2017 and I was back behind this bar doing just that. However my grandparents also owned a Diner when I was a kid, very old-fashioned by today's standards - with venues in London and Suffolk."

"My favourite float for the record, is The Kentucky Morning. We have 2 scoops of Cornflake flavoured ice-cream, which creates a buttery-sweet delicious flavour, we then pour some soda water over that, some Bourbon and then finally add - my favourite ingredient - some Beurre noisette syrup. The end result is outstanding."

What are Fortnum's most commonly ordered drinks?

"Because of our clientele we lean more towards our classics, for example Negronis, Gin & Vodka Martinis and Cosmopolitans too. In terms of our top 10 classics I want all of the team here to be able to execute those consistently. Consistency is the highest indicator of quality, in my view."

What's our approach to customer service at 45 Jermyn Street?

"We have our bar regulars and I like to anticipate their requests, know what they are going to ask for in advance. I hear them deliberating about what they're going to have in the background sometimes, so I listen very carefully. Humour goes a long way too, and there has to be a bit of informality to what we do - we're not stuffy and old-fashioned - because people come here to have a good time. I remember my old bar manager saying to me - 'bars are supposed to be fun!'

Page Break

What's the most fun aspect of working in 45 Jermyn St.?

"We once got an order for 16 Espresso Martinis - and we've only got 4 shakers - but it's the kind of challenge we love, and we managed to pull it off. We set up like an assembly line, we were like the Henry Ford of Espresso Martinis! One of the team was racking up glasses, one person getting the garnish, another filling liquids, someone adding ice and someone else shaking. You have to create bartenders with 6 arms! And the serious point is that it's just a wonderful feeling being in a flow state. In order for that to happen, everyone has to be in a good place. No negativity and the bar has to be set and ready."

Team culture?

"I'll take a good attitude over experience any day, because technique can be taught...but attitude? That's hard to teach."

What is bartending to you - what is your favourite thing about it?

"My favourite thing to do is to turn someone around, from being in a grumpy state when they arrive, setting myself a challenge of making that person like my best friend by the time they leave. And I think I can always do it. When someone's rude it is fear, its fear that they're not going to get what they want - so you do need to kill that with kindness."

If someone has never come to 45 Jermyn St. - why should they visit?

"Well they should definitely try the Beef Wellington, the theatre of how we serve it! But it's actually everything about the theatre of this venue, the tastes...but my tip to anyone coming in for a meal would be, to come and see myself and the team at the bar around 6pm (before the meal). Jump on to chair 56 when we're still preparing some of our finishing touches, straining some clarified punch for example."

What do you see as the future of 45 Jermyn St.?

“I also want to continue to push the sustainability storytelling...it's a lot of fun to think about the things we can create, which would previously have gone straight into the bin. This also brings me onto our waste citrus vodka, in November and December of last year every single lemon that was used to make lemon juice for this bar was zested first. We ended up with 20 kilos of just lemon skin, and this went into a run of 400 bottles of the Citrus Vodka. So more collaboration with other brands in the future, and doing more with less."

Page Break

What's the relationship between the bar and the restaurant?

"We try and keep it as reciprocal and symbiotic as possible. As an example I make a syrup from strawberry leaves. So every morning when Ellen finishes chopping up her strawberries in the kitchen for the Mille-Feuille she brings me a little punnet of green leaves that I store in my freezer until I have enough to make my strawberry leaf syrup."

How do you keep up to date with the leading ideas in the drinks industry?

"I stay away from social media, I like the low information diet! But what I do instead is I ask my team to constantly be on the lookout. So Matt our head bartender lives on Instagram, scrolling away, and he shows me cool stuff. If I could pick one publication that I love, on the industry, it would probably be Punch Drink."

PERSONAL HISTORY

“I was born in Dagenham, which is Zone 5 greater London, and I went to the same school as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dudley Moore.

I went to University and studied music, in fact we're all musicians in the 45 Jermyn St. bar, I play guitar and we have two bassists and a drummer...while one of our team used to play saxophone.

While I was studying music, I also seemed to spend a lot of time in bars and I realised I was a night owl, so I got a job in my student union nightclub initially (in the University of Hertfordshire).

I had a great time there, and after that I ended living in Cambridge...and got a job in a bar called 12A, owned by a family who were in charge of one of the only independent Italian restaurants in Cambridge. It was a carbon copy of Milk & Honey, and a good place to cut my teeth initially, as I learned the key skills I needed. It was a very cool bar that was open until 4am...it's also where I met my wife! After a year there, my now wife, decided that she was going to study in London so I decided to tag along as well.

I first worked for the Bourne & Hollingsworth Group for about a year as a bartender. There were some cool industry characters at that time, one of those I worked with was Jim Wrigley.

After that I went to work for the Breakfast Group, who have venues such as Opium in China Town. It's in the middle of Gerrard Street above a place called Dumpling’s Legend on the top floor. I then worked in various bars before coming to 45.

Hobbies?

"I love music, and I've written some of my own in the past, but also played in bands. It's hard to find the time nowadays. I bought a tape delay recently, from 1964, it's the same one that The Shadows used. I have a day off on Sunday and I'm just going to be playing surf music all day. I really like buying old lo-fi gear, but in addition I also have a clone of a TB303 Bass Synthesizer which is what all Acid House music was made on. If I can find an old radio station mixing console and have that in my house with all of my musical bits and pieces plugged into it...it could be my control centre! I also have about 11 guitars in my house, my favourite is an SG and my father in law has a Gibson 345, a 1965 edition and I'm hoping to get a Les Paul soon."