Tayer + Elementary, London
Previous Winners, click the links to read the awards
2019 (Euro) - Swift, London and Little Red Door, Paris (TIE)
2019 (N. America) - Blacktail, NYC
2020 - Bar Tonique, New Orleans
2021 (Europe) - Danico, Paris
2021 (N. America) - Gift Shop, Toronto
2022 (Australia/Asia) - Maybe Sammy, Sydney
Fucking Alex Kratena.
He's ruined me for bars. If his name is attached to it, and with great fortune Monica Berg is the other half of this dynamo here, it's going to be a spectacularly great experience.
The dual concepts have been around for a few years, but I had yet to go.
I'm all in.
Fancy people call it Aperitivo hour. I call it solid day drinking on a Friday to make sure I experienced both concepts.
Welcome to Elementary.
Let's go off book and start with the food. The kitchen puts out delicious morsels and drinking snacks. Katsu please!
Elementary relies on batched cocktails along with a beer list, that naturally leads off with the Czech classique Pilsner Urquell, and hand-selected wine faves.
Sometimes you sacrifice quality and depth of flavour for speed with cocktails on tap. Not here. It's the best tap cocktail program in the world (with deepest respect to Mr. Lyan and his long-gone temple of bottled booze at White Lyan before that was a "thing").
Savoury, umami elements play within classic cocktails. Short, concentrated pours meant for sipping and enjoying.
Slip behind the velvet rope, and given a warm welcome by Alex himself, Tayer awaits. More formal looking, industrial, but hardly rigid.
This early Friday crowd had no pretention. A group with inked sleeves and trucker hats laughing with bankers calling it a week.
The cocktails are on point, balanced, focused and original.
It's my new (new to me anyway) favourite bar in London and the best bar experience in Europe and North America for 2022. You are looked after, every guest is the most important guest, the atmosphere is engaging.... and it's got damn good cocktails and bites.
Photo credit Tayer + Elementary
Photo Credit: Essential Journal
To qualify for The Single Table awards, I had to visit that location in the given calendar year.