When Alex Francis and Barney O’Kane left Paris’ Little Purple Door in 2024, there was by no means any query what their subsequent step could be. They might, after all, proceed serving cocktails, and it was a provided that their new bar program could be a sustainable one.
Earlier this yr, the duo launched the primary a part of their De Vie idea, Comptoir De Vie, a Paris restaurant with a fantastic eating menu and cocktail pairings to match. Bar De Vie, centered round drinks, will open later within the yr with a brief and candy menu of recognizable basic cocktails with seasonal De Vie twists. There are not any agave spirits or American whiskeys; nearly all of substances are native. Each drink in this system is served up—and that’s not a stylistic selection. Francis and O’Kane have designed the menu to function with out ice completely.
For the co-owners, De Vie is solely an extension of how they already reside their lives. “The best influence any of us have is thru the work we do, and we wish to help the world we wish to see,” says Francis. “We couldn’t think about working some other approach.”
Right here, Francis shares how he and O’Kane haven’t simply prioritized sustainability at De Vie, but additionally, how they’ve constructed it into the bar’s entire basis.
[Though we work without] ice, solely use French spirits and work seasonally, none of that ought to be related to the visitor; they shouldn’t must know that to grasp what’s occurring [in our bar] or have time. I see the best way we work as an excessive; it’s a approach of taking a look at the way to do issues in another way, however I don’t assume that [everyone needs to] fully take away clear ice or ice basically from bars.
We did it for lots of various causes. The principle one is simply that ice is such a waste. It’s actually simply stuff that goes within the sink, and then you definitely’re turning on scorching water to soften it. If we put an excessive amount of meals within the bin, we’d freak out that we’d be losing an excessive amount of.
No bar in Paris is making their very own ice due to the scale of venues, so right here, an organization makes them and delivers them, and ice is heavier than concrete, so that you’re principally transporting cinder blocks from one a part of Paris to a different. Even if in case you have common ice, like from ice machine, it takes over 10 liters of water to make one kilo of ice. So it’s a waste of water, a waste of power, a waste of cash. Visitors don’t worth it as a lot as you assume they do. It’s extra of the trade inflating [its importance]. I’ve even had individuals say to me that we’ll by no means be on the 50 Finest checklist as a result of we don’t have block ice.
Though the thought was introduced up due to sustainability, economically not having block ice additionally has quite a lot of benefits. If we have been nonetheless implementing clear ice in our bar program, then we must compromise on the superb unbiased French spirits [we use].
Past simply designing the drinks or the menu, we needed to design the house to not have ice from the beginning. As an alternative of getting a typical bar station, the place a lot of the house is taken up by the ice effectively, ours are based mostly round a versatile refrigerated drawer unit, which will be each a fridge or a freezer, relying on how we determine to make use of it that day. It holds all our batches on the particular temperature that we would like.
Pre-batching entire drinks upfront permits us to maintain the time from the drink’s execution to the visitor’s first sip as quick as potential. (After all pre-batching isn’t distinctive to us, and it’s one of many the reason why going iceless didn’t really feel like an enormous problem or shift; it’s pretty commonplace within the high tier of the trade because it ensures consistency and effectivity in service.)
After pre-batching, we had to consider the temperature as soon as the drink will get to friends. At Comptoir De Vie, 99 p.c of friends are taking a [curated cocktail tasting] expertise with drinks which are a most of three sips in measurement, so there may be little or no have to hold drinks colder for prolonged intervals of time. However for à la carte drinkers who take what most individuals would contemplate a “full cocktail,” we designed the service supplies and glassware to assist hold the drink as chilly as potential for so long as potential. This contains pouring drinks tableside from insulated metallic cups, utilizing thicker recycled glassware in order that lengthy drinks retain the chilly freezer temperature for longer, and designing ceramics with built-in “whiskey rock” items that create a bigger thermal mass, which is able to, once more, retain the temperature of the freezer.
We even have to consider other ways to do the dilution. We use teas [and] infusions, and for the sour-style drinks, we combine fruit or vegetable juices with different modifiers equivalent to acids or sugars, and create a frozen dice designed to fully dissolve, both by way of mixing or shaking, to deliver the drink to its supposed temperature and dilution.
When it comes to signature drinks and stuff like that, [we don’t have one, because everything changes so often]. We’re very fortunate that in France, the common individual is way more conscious of the season they’re in since you see the reflection of it within the grocery store, within the markets. You don’t see that within the U.Ok. and undoubtedly not within the U.S.
One of many issues we attempt to embrace as a lot as potential in Comptoir De Vie is that inconsistency of availability is nice, and it permits you to worth issues once they’re out there, and also you stay up for them once they’re not. We’ve discovered that our friends actually get pleasure from that. What we want, as a substitute of individuals coming again repeatedly for a similar factor repeatedly, is for individuals to be excited and assume, “We are able to’t watch for citrus season as a result of they’re going to do that drink once more.” Our model of a bar is an try to provide [some of] that consistency: There’ll at all times be a Martini, and there’ll at all times be a highball or no matter, however we’re not going to ask you, “Would you like a twist?” It’ll come because it comes, and it’ll change throughout the seasons.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
