The pride of the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver’s Botanist Bar has just been named the winner of the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award as part of North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023. Charlene Rooke meets the team behind the bar which puts its work, staff, local produce and patrons to the fore
Walk up from Vancouver's cruise-ship-dotted downtown waterfront into a sparkling modern hotel lobby, past quirky Douglas Coupland sculptures and glass vitrines of iconic fashions, and up an elegant white marble staircase to Botanist Bar. Although it's in the luxe Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, and fronts the celebrated fine dining Botanist restaurant, you'll be greeted there with what Grant Sceney calls "living-room hospitality" – the secret to winning the Michter's Art of Hospitality Award, part of North America’s 50 Best Bars 2023.
Sceney, the hotel's creative beverage director, asks Botanist Bar staff to imagine how they'd make guests feel welcome and comfortable in their home. "When you enter a space for the first time, you can be a little uneasy," Sceney says. "Where do I go, where do I sit, where can I put my coat? You need to feel like you belong." Deeply inspired by restaurateur Danny Meyer's bestselling 2009 book Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, Sceney quotes its hospitable spirit: "You must make guests feel like you're on their side."
Long before the bar's 2017 opening, Sceney and the start-up team considered every detail of the bright, greenery-dripped bar's concept and design. "The body has so many senses, from sight, sound, smell and taste to comfort..." he explains, as he draws a velvet-curtained cocoon of quiet over the bar's coveted, crescent-shaped booth, for a chat alongside Botanist head bartender Jeff Savage.
Head bartender Jeff Savage prioritises natural conversationalists ahead of taught bartending skills when seeking out new members to add to his team
Although staff training here incorporates the highest industry hospitality standards, when Sceney interviews candidates he asks about their hobbies and passions, or who and what inspires them. While mixology technique and cocktail lore can be taught, chatting with guests about, say, watches, travel or sports should come naturally, Savage agrees. "The more connective tissue a bartender has to the rest of the world, the better their service will be."
The value of time
Perched over a very lively hotel lobby lounge, a Botanist Bar experience is a bit more "cultivated and curated," Savage says. "We have a little bit more time with our guests, and we really take into consideration the value of somebody's time, sitting down at our bar – it's like a gift."
The cocktail menu – as informed by gathering from the Pacific Northwest's oceans and rainforests as it is by modern trends from across the Pacific Rim – is a starting point for conversations with bar staff. "There's a story to be told with every drink – either with the creation, ingredients or inspiration – that all our bartenders and servers can share," says Savage.
For instance, he conceived the Much Needed Escape (a clarified milk punch featuring coconut husk-infused rum, coconut distillate, ginger and sencha tea) from a pandemic-induced yearning for travel. The clear, silky potion is a nuanced modern take on the ultimate travel cocktail, a Pina Colada. "It's familiar but a bit nerdy and weird. We can tell you the story behind the drink or about how clarifying works," says Savage, or if guest just wants to sip and enjoy, "that's also fine, and they'll still love the drink."
Alongside its more bespoke creations, Botanist's classic serves, such as its martini, are just as notable in their execution
The Botanist Bar lab, a gleaming stainless steel alcove that's the envy of many an international peer, is the site of genesis for these creations. While many top bars conduct research and development experiments in corners or walk-in fridges of commercial restaurant kitchens, this lab was designed by Sceney as a purpose-built space for bar-specific work. It has all the toys of molecular mixology – the rotary evaporator, centrifuge, refractometer and dehydrator are all present and correct – but it also functions as flexible space during service.
Back in 2017, drinks emerged from the lab in mossy, smoking terrariums or bird-shaped glass vessels. "We wanted to do something new and make a very big impact… to get recognition," Sceney says. "People had to trust us first, to see that hotel bars weren't just stuffy places – that they can be fun, whimsical and do creative things." With the luxury of a secure berth in a popular hotel, Sceney and Savage have been able to chart a long, ambitious arc for the bar's development. "I think that the mark of maturity once a bar programme has started to become successful is that it's always adapting and growing and changing," Savage offers.
Evolution not revolution
Today, Botanist Bar wows its guests by combining confident hospitality with sophisticated, technical but still accessible drinks and food. Sceney and Savage, both former Diageo World Class Canada champions, are fluent in international trends but confident in the ultra-local dialect of this bar's hospitality and offerings. In Savage's words: "When people come here from, say, London, we're like: cool. Try our Botanist's Martini," which is a blend of coastal gins, with house vermouth, a sea tincture, oyster leaf and vegan caviar. "This is what we do. This is our identity," he says.
While separate from the 50 Best Discovery-listed Botanist restaurant, food pairings at the bar are made in close collaboration with its sister eatery
Delightful small plates, like a lamb belly poutine topped with egg-yolk jam, are part of the bar experience. Though the bar is a separate entity from Botanist restaurant, the teams work closely together. For instance, Savage's personally guided, six-course cocktail-pairing dinner collaboration with Botanist chef Hector Laguna was a much-lauded, sold-out signature experience of post-lockdown Vancouver dining.
The Botanist Bar team proudly champions another form of hospitality: its commitment to the local community, through buying local and championing mindful causes. "Using the platform and purchasing capacity of Fairmont for good is a big part of this hotel's DNA," Savage says. Botanist Bar has raised awareness and funds for food-security causes such as: Urban Farm and A Better Life Foundation, a provider of meals and hotel industry training; the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House, a community centre open to some of the city's most vulnerable; the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation and the local chapter of Rainbow Railroad, which assists members of the LGBTQI+ community to escape violence.
While used to the spotlight themselves, Sceney and Savage ensure that each Botanist Bar team member sees themself as an ambassador not just for the space, but for the region and the country. "This might be a guest's first stop in Canada, and we get the opportunity to set the bar as high as we can for the rest of the country," says Savage.
So the fact that the Michter's Art of Hospitality Award is a team win makes it all the more special for this crew. The honour of being recognised for North America's best hospitality was deeply felt by each person, including two members who have been on the team since year one. Some were moved almost to tears by the news.
Inclusivity, after all, is another way this bar excels at being a comfort zone. "Ensuring our staff are taken care of, making sure that what we offer is accessible to anyone who wants it, and meeting people with sensitivity, is how our hospitality can extend beyond our bar," Savage says.
Now watch the video with the Botanist Bar team:
North America’s 50 Best Bars will be revealed at an event in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico on 4th May at 8.30pm local time. The ceremony will be livestreamed on 50 Best Bars TV YouTube channel and 50 Best Bars Facebook page. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to stay up to date with all the news and announcements.
