Sidebar:
Honey & Raspberry Collins
 

Some people might consider the job of a bartender to be a simple one. You open a beer, you mix a drink, you serve it – how tough can it be? Yet bartending can be raised to an art form if the bartender in question has the passion, the knowledge and drive necessary to perfect the craft. He or she can be considered a professional right up there with top chefs when their sense of ingredients becomes so finely tuned that instinct rather than set recipes creates drinks that can only be described as extraordinary. Franco Centola from Ristorante Pappagallo is that mixologist.

Franco was born in Giulianova in the Abruzzo region of Italy and from a young age he knew he wanted to be a bartender. After he left secondary school he went straight into an hotelier school where he stayed for five years, learning all aspects of the service industry.

He found employment in nearby Rimini, working as a bartender and server in a hotel restaurant. It was great experience but a very seasonal job, so in the winter he made his way to the mountains to the ski resorts.
He began to spend winters at the world-renowned Tshuggen Grand Hotel in Switzerland, and the summers in Bellagio, Lake Como. It was a pretty heady lifestyle and he had to have the skills to support it – these were not your everyday resorts and demanded the highest level of professionalism.

After three years, Franco switched to winters in the Gstaad Palace, another five-star luxury hotel, and looked for somewhere new to spend his summers. He managed to win a position at the famed Cipriani hotel in Italy where every day he was serving drinks to the rich and famous (apparently Nicholas Cage, Sean Penn, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie are fabulous people, but he’s not so keen on Sylvester Stallone – oo the gossip!) He spent 20 summers at the Cipriani, so you know that this man knew what he was doing! He had met Vico from Ristorante Pappagallo whilst working in Venice, so when the hotel underwent a change of management, he decided to give Cayman a try.

Franco moved here in 2008 and has been the main mixologist behind the bar at Pappagallo ever since. I’ve rarely seen such enthusiasm and passion in a bartender. He brings in special liqueurs from Europe, hardware from Japan, and has designed a drinks menu that takes the noble cocktail to new heights. We were enthralled and entranced, and he, sensing willing subjects, treated us to a journey in chemistry that opened our eyes.

All I’ll say is that even as Harry Potter leaves the theatres, there is a powerful wizard plying his trade in West Bay. I urge you to spend an evening at the bar there and witness a master at work. WH