The Calabrese Sink™

Where it started

Salvatore Calabrese first stepped behind a bar at the age of eleven, in a hotel on the Amalfi Coast, and went on to shape some of London’s most admired rooms, from Dukes to the Library Bar at The Lanesborough, where he created the Breakfast Martini. Few people have thought harder about what a bartender’s hands are doing during service, and why.

Our work together began with his first bar opening, Salvatore at Fifty, in a members’ club within a St James’s townhouse. It continued through Salvatore at Playboy and on into bars for Corinthia Hotels and Rocco Forte Hotels, and the Calabrese Sink™ grew out of that long collaboration, developed hand in hand with Salvatore himself.

What it does

Every cocktail bar produces a constant trail of peel, spent citrus and garnish trimmings. In most underbars it gathers on the working surface or waits in a bin out of reach, and clearing it means stepping away, turning round and breaking the rhythm of service.

The Calabrese Sink™ lets the bartender clear those perishables quickly and cleanly, in one movement, from the position they are already working in. Turnaround between drinks comes down, the station stays clean through the busiest hours, and the bartender’s attention stays where it belongs, on the guest.

Designed around the bartender

It grew from a principle Salvatore and we have shared for years: that design is the key to a successful bar. A bartender should face forward and be able to reach every ingredient to make a cocktail in three steps, and it is the layout of the underbar that makes that possible.

The sink is one small expression of that idea. It is never an accessory added at the end, but part of how a station is planned from the first drawing, alongside the ice wells, speed rails and refrigeration that sit around it. We fit it in our underbars and full builds alike, and today it is at work in bars around the world.