1/13/2024 0 Comments European bartender school new york![]() At first, it was a lesson in humility, but eventually, Cardone began to make a name for himself, placing consistently in finals.įlair competitions have brought Cardone all around the world, undeterred by the lack of audience in his home city (where guests were concerned, at least). I competed at my first flair competition in the Cayman Islands that same year and my eyes were opened to the true world of flair bartending.” He began to find his everyday groove in working flair, which he defines as techniques that can be integrated into service without slowing things down (as opposed to exhibition flair, the showier style that comes to mind when we think of flair). “I purchased a VHS tape and memorized and perfected every single move. “I wanted to be Tom Cruise in Cocktail, or one of those badass bartenders in Coyote Ugly, which had just been released that summer,” he tells me. But where did he get his start?Ĭardone’s flair training and bartending career go hand in hand, the seed for both planted in the summer of 2000 when he signed up for bartending school, where a five-hour flair course was on offer. ” Las Vegas flair great Tobin Ellis has famously referred to New York City as the “black hole of flair bartending” and Cardone can’t disagree: “Since the day I started, the majority of the guests I’ve had would rather see a flair bartender drop and break something rather than hit a big move successfully.”ĭespite New York’s general lack of enthusiasm for flair, Cardone has harnessed it in an unwavering embrace-single-handedly, his humble mastery and long-term commitment have kept it alive in the city all these years. They just want their drink, and they want it now. “My theory has always been that New Yorkers are always too busy and trying too hard to be impressed with flair. “If I had a nickel for everyone who ever said, ‘Just make the drink, show-off,’ I could retire,” he shares. New York, on the other hand, is perhaps the worst place to showcase your skills, no matter how impressive - a phenomenon Cardone attributes to New Yorkers’ notorious lack of patience coupled with the fact that the audience is not easily impressed. Las Vegas is a flair mecca, a place where guests inherently love a show and aren’t in a hurry to have their drink in hand internationally, London, Dubai and pockets of Eastern Europe are home to strong flair culture. Sure, the craft has been marred by the ’80s, its lone syllable synonymous with excessive hair gel and black button-down shirts, but it’s still out there, thriving in certain pockets of the industry and hanging on by a thread in others. ![]() While the restaurant itself didn’t last long - it shuttered quietly a few years later - Cardone held fast in his own chosen path: a champion (the only one, in fact) of New York City’s flair bartending scene.įlair is one of those mysterious niches of the bar world that isn’t talked about much these days, broadly speaking. I first met Chris Cardone behind the bar in 2014 at White Street, a cavernous brick-laden architectural masterpiece helmed by Top Chef and Danny Meyer vet Floyd Cardoz. ![]()
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