About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators. 22.7k Followers, 7,476 Following, 1,168 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Marian Beke (@marianbeke). You read that right, you can book your private masterclass with The Gibson Bar manager and owner, Marian Beke, he is an internationally known bartender, famous for his outstanding creativity. He is constantly looking out for new tastes, ingredients and inspiring people all around the world.The package includes 3 of The Gibson Vintage Cocktails of your choice, delivered to your home, and 1h.
Age: 38
Originally from: Žilina, Slovak Republic
Profession: Bar owner & bartender
At: London
Growing up in the little city of Žilina in the country then called Czechoslovakia, Marian Beke always knew he wanted to work in hospitality. “My father has a wine business in our home town, selling from the cellar and distributing in restaurants and bars,” he says. “Since I was 9 or 10 I was helping him with the snacks and serving wine by the glass.”
But his original idea was to be a sommelier, or follow in his father’s footsteps. Žilina, Slovakia’s third city, has a population of barely 150,000, and Beke didn’t come across cocktail bars until he moved to Bratislava to study hospitality as a teenager.
There were three or four international-style bars in Prague at the time, among them Bugsy’s and Tretter’s, which are still going today, and a trip across the border to the Czech Republic proved eye-opening. “The personalisation for each guest was what fascinated me the most,” Beke recalls. “It was liquid cooking, not just opening a bottle of beer or pouring a glass of wine, but customising the drink.”
Beke’s school didn’t teach bartending, not least because the students were too young, but after graduating he started work at a well-known Bratislava bar, Paparazzi (no relation to the Warsaw Paparazzi).
The training and inspiration worked a little too well. Beke decided on the spot to leave Bratislava, move to London, study English and learn to bartend. With both social media and smartphones in their infancy, no Google Maps and no Ubers, adapting to a new city where he didn’t speak the language – and a city double the population of his entire country – was tougher than it would be today.
“My language school had an internet café and you’d sit there and do your emails,” he recalls. “The first thing you’d do when you came to London, everyone advised, was buy an A to Z [London’s iconic street map]. So you’d take undergrounds, you’d know the tube station, and at the tube station, you’d open the page of the A to Z, and then you’d be walking the streets for half an hour trying to find the place.”
There was at least one familiar face in the big city: Erik Lorincz, now head bartender at the American Bar. “Erik was one year ahead of me, and he’s Slovakian: I knew him because he used to work across the road from me in Bratislava, and he left one year before me,” Beke recalls. “He got me my first job, at a nightclub called Attica: he was already a bartender, but I was a bar back.”
Moving on from Attica, newly acquired language skills in hand, Beke embarked on a learning programme that could hardly have been better calculated. First was Townhouse, the second bar from the team behind LAB, one of the most influential bars of turn-of-the-millennium London, where he learned to work fast, fluidly and with fresh fruit flavours.
Next up came Montgomery Place, a speakeasy then run by Ago Perrone. “That was something different to be doing classic cocktails, from Champagne to Negroni, and I learned Italian hospitality and how to socialise with guests,” Beke says. After three years, Perrone left for the Connaught, while Beke went to Artesian, where he worked alongside Alex Kratena, another émigré from the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia.
After Artesian, the next step was Purl. “That was a learning experience for me because they’d been doing liquid nitrogen and foams – it was nice to play with liquid nitrogen, dry ice, those kind of things,” he says.
And from there came the invitation to set up Nightjar, the much-awarded Shoreditch bar. “I started from zero, literally designing the bar, defining the team and creating the concept,” Beke says. “But after five years I was getting a bit comfortable there: after five years everything works, and you’re just doing a new cocktail menu once a year.”
The prospect, also, of having a family, and of getting old, weighed on him: nobody wants to be working 16-18 hour days with young children, or indeed in old age. The logical next step? To start his own place. And so, three years ago, he found a spot on Old Street and opened Gibson, soft launching from November 2015, and opening formally in early 2016.
The transition from manager to owner was quite the culture shock. “Running a business is not about how good a bartender you are, or how good a cocktail it is – you can make the best cocktail in the world, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to open the bar and operate,” he says. “There could be a million factors that could close your bar, from hygiene to licensing.”
Gibson is already much praised – it entered the World’s 50 Best Bars list at number 6 within weeks of opening – but Beke feels it’s barely hit its stride. “I was figuring it takes three, six, nine months to get the bar started, but now we’ve been open for one and a half years, it will take another six months to fix the social media, the music….” he says. “At a bare minimum, it’s two years.”
His logic is interesting. “It takes really two years to go through the menu and understand the menu, because it’s not about you: it’s about your clientele, what they like, your team, how to work with them, how to choose the right ones, how to fix the mistakes and establish the brand,” he says.
And what does his father, the wine merchant, make of his bar? I ask. Here Beke’s perfectionism glitters, hard as granite. “They’ve never been,” he says. “They know I opened a bar, but I want to fix the bar first. After two years, when I see it’s nice and settled, I’ll bring them in: there’s no point opening and just bringing them in two months later. That would just be stress.”
With the low/no alcohol trend showing no signs of slowing down, we explore the world of mocktails with Marian Beke, leading bartender at The Gibson Bar. Here's his favourite ginger beer mocktail serves to get your creative juices flowing!
Why mocktails?
Mocktails are a non-alcoholic alternative to a cocktail, and with customers increasingly looking for more low/no alcohol alternative they can be a great addition to your venue’s menu.
For customers who do not want to drink alcohol, mocktails are an excellent way of providing your customer with a quality drink, without compromising on flavour or experience. Mocktails can also drive more profit than other soft drinks and are a great option to offer customers at different occasions or times of the day.
As a member of the bar staff, an important part of your role is to serve responsibly and to ensure your customer does not drink alcohol excessively. Mocktails can be a good way of offering customers a non-alcoholic drink as an alternative to alcohol or in between alcoholic drinks.
Marian Beke’s top tips for creating mocktails
- As with cocktails using complimentary flavours is key.
- Get creative with your flavours but also with presentation, for example using unusual glassware or colourful garnishes.
- Use fresh, seasonal and innovative ingredients to entice customers such as local herbs and fruits.
- Often less is more - keep it simple, by using simple ingredients with great flavours.
Creating the Perfect Ginger Beer Mocktail
Ginger beer mocktails have become a favorite serve among bartenders, as a naturally fermented ginger based drink ginger beer is perfect for creating a tasty non-alcoholic alternative. Ginger beer can add extra flavour and is a great complement for many juices or syrups used to create the perfect mocktail.
At The Gibson, there are many seasonal mocktails on offer and quite often enough Marian and his team create customised mocktails on the spot depending on what ingredients are at hand and what flavour the person is looking for, often incorporating ginger beer mocktails.
It is important to recognise many people these days want to go out and just have a good time with friends but for many reasons they can't drink. Marian firmly believes it is important to make these people feel just as special as other people in your venue and spend the same attention to detail and craftsmanship creating their mocktails as you would for cocktails.
The ginger beer mocktails Marian has created below are all based on local flavours used in The Gibson:
London Mule
- 1 Lime squeezed
- 15ml Elderflower cordial
- 30ml Apple juice
- Pinch of pink pepper
- 5 leaves of marjoram leaves
- Ginger beer
METHOD
Pour all ingredients into the mug/glass
Marian Becker
Try to use fresh ingredients where possible
Top up with ginger beer.
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Clover Fizz
- 20ml Fresh lemon juice
- 40ml Fresh gherkin juice
- 2 Bar spoons of quince jam
- 2 Dashes orange bitters
- 3 Mint leaves
- Ginger beer
METHOD
Pour all ingredients into a shaker except the ginger beer
Shake for 6-8 seconds until quince jam is dissolved
Strain into the glass
Marian Beke Story
Top up with ginger beer.
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Indian Summer
- 15ml Fresh lemon juice
- 3 Bar spoons of pumpkin jam
- Handful of fresh wheat grass
- 10ml Honey syrup
- Ginger beer
METHOD
Shake the ingredients
Strain into a glass
Top up with ginger beer.
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Orchard Ball
- 20ml Lime juice
- 0.5cm Lemon grass
- 2 Limes leaves
- 1 Bay leaf
- 30ml Pear juice
- 10ml Sugar syrup
- Ginger beer
METHOD
Pour all ingredients into shaker except ginger beer
Fill the shaker with fresh ice cubes
Shake for 6-8 seconds
Top up with ginger beer.
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Samurai's Tea
- 15ml Lap-sang tea syrup
- 20ml Fresh lime juice
- 2 Purple shiso leaves
- Pinch Sancho pepper
- 25ml Cantaloupe melon purée
- Ginger beer
METHOD
Make a tea by boiling water and macerating tea for 3-4 minutes.
Strain the tea and mix with 1/1 ratio of caster sugar.
Allow the sugar to dissolve.
This is now your lapsang syrup.
Make cantaloupe puree by mashing scooped melon and cut into cubes.
Add sugar syrup.
Blend together with a hand blender.
Place all ingredients in a shaker and shake.
Strain.
Top with ginger beer.
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