World’s best bar staff to take over Perth venues for Cocktail Weekend

Fact: when it comes to cocktails, Perth is a city that is punching well above its weight. Or at least its population size.

Veteran bartenders have established platforms to celebrate and educate female bar staff, plus cocktail competitions to help sharpen emerging bar talent; 2024 was the first year that the six Australian finalists in the global World Class bartending competition included two West Australians (Shirley Yeung from Foxtrot Unicorn and Matt Bodycote from State Buildings).

Dubai’s celestially themed Galaxy Bar is bringing its polished drinks and service to Perth’s Songbird Bar.

They’ve also increased training, and the launch of local pre-bottled cocktail brand Idle Hands has tipped the odds of getting a good cocktail while out – or even at home – ever more in drinkers’ favour.

Next month, Perth’s nascent cocktail scene will get another boost when the city hosts the inaugural Perth Cocktail Weekend (August 9-10): a city-wide party that sees three bars from the influential World’s 50 Best Bars list take over three of Perth’s favourite watering holes.

The funsters from Sydney’s legendary Maybe Sammy (#15 on the World’s 50 Best Bars list and the reigning holder of Australia’s best bar) will take over long-standing cocktail den Mechanic’s Institute, supported by Sydney tequila bar El Primo Sanchez.

Madrid’s grungy aquarium-themed Salmon Guru (#16) is taking up residence at CBD favourite Terrarium, while Dubai’s celestially themed Galaxy Bar (#50) brings its polished drinks and service to Songbird Bar, the rooftop bar at the Ritz-Carlton Perth as well as the workplace of Perth Cocktail Weekend spearhead, Marco Barsotti.

Prior to becoming the hotel’s beverage and bars manager in 2023, Barsotti opened and operated bars at other Ritz-Carltons throughout South East Asia and has also shaken tins and stirred drinks globally. All this experience has helped him put together quite the little black book of bartending contacts, as well as help him play matchmaker between the visiting bars and the hometown contingent.

“Of course, we wanted to find bars that are famous around the world, but they also had to fit in with the concept of each of the bars in Perth,” says Barsotti, who was born in Florence, Italy. “It wouldn’t have made sense if we brought an elegant and sophisticated bar to Mechanics Institute which is more like a party-style bar.”

As part of the weekend, each visiting bar will dispatch two team members to Perth (one bartender, one front-of-house) to help the crew at the local bar make drinks and take care of the all-important hospitality aspect. As the saying goes: a good bartender is not there to serve drinks, they’re there to serve guests.

None of the takeovers are ticketed, but considering they’ll be happening on Friday and Saturday (August 9 and 10) nights, arriving earlier rather than later might be a good idea. (Barsotti says Songbird will offer drinkers a chance to make reservations.)

In addition to the takeovers, the guest bartenders will also host masterclasses and seminars on the Tuesday (August 6) and Wednesday (August 7) where they will share bartending and hospitality advice with local bar staff and interested members of the public. These talks are also free but registration is required.

Madrid’s Salmon Guru will be bringing its experience to Perth CBD. Credit: Dani Acosta

Although the idea behind Perth Cocktail Weekend is to bring some of the world’s best to the west, Barsotti hopes the event also helps locals appreciate what’s in their own backyard.

“While we wanted to create an event that let Perth have fun and experience what these bars could do, we also want drinkers to realise that what we have in Perth isn’t that far from what these places are offering,” says Barsotti. “We just need to put up our hands, raise our voices and get people talking about Perth.”

Perth Cocktail Week is part of Plateful Perth, a month-long celebration of food and drink running throughout August in the CBD. The program features events, classes and experiences and dining offers.

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