Pietro Collina: the modern Martini maestro
Pietro Collina has emerged as a defining force behind the renaissance of the Martini. We took a seat at the bar of his Notting Hill venue Viajante87 to discuss how he approaches the serve not just as a cocktail, but as an experience.
When you think of the Martini craft, you probably think of a few people in particular. For the classically dry Martini, there is no one more iconic than Alessandro Palazzi, bar manager of Dukes Bar in London, while for the performative Martini, no-one puts on a show quite like Agostino Perrone, director of mixology at Dukes’ Mayfair neighbour, The Connaught Bar. And when it comes to the vintage Martini, Salvatore Calabrese has well and truly earned his moniker as ‘The Maestro’. But there is a whole other genre of Martinis that belongs to a different man, who has created some of the bar industry’s most-loved Martinis.
Known for his meticulous technique and reverent innovation, Rome-born Collina has transformed the iconic drink from a stiff symbol of mid-century sophistication into a dynamic canvas for modern tastes.
The former beverage director of renowned New York City spots such as The NoMad Hotel and Eleven Madison Park currently looks after Thesleff Group venues Los Mochis and Viajante87 in Notting Hill, and Sale e Pepe in Knightsbridge, as the beverage director. However, no matter where he is positioned, he manages to bring a rare balance of precision and creativity to every Martini he creates.
“I basically come from a wine background,” Collina shares. “So before I got into cocktails, I basically studied to be a sommelier. So when I started learning how to make drinks, I always used the grid in my mind, which is basically how you do blind tastings of wine – so everything from sight to aroma to mouthfeel – and then a lot to do with structure. I love wine tasting notes, so I always utilise those when I think about making cocktails, and specifically Martinis.”
Collina’s bartending career has spanned 15 years, and while his cocktail repertoire isn’t limited to Martinis, it has been the drink that has remained a constant throughout his tenure at some of the best bars around the world.
“The first place I ever bartended was at Eleven Madison Park in New York. And you know, when you start bartending, you have a drink that you start ordering at different bars to showcase that you know what you’re talking about as a guest, right? And mine from the beginning was a Martinez. And from that moment on, I always went through the gauntlet of Martini preparations,” he says.
Collina notes that he was bartending in New York from 2012 to 2019. “New York City is a Martini type of city – there are so many people who drink Martinis – and in my time at NoMad, we were very fortunate to have the trust of the guests, so we’d have so many regulars who’d come back, who would just rattle off different types of Martinis, or just wanted the next one, the next one, the next one, and be like, ‘oh, I had this last week. I want this one now’ – they were always open for exploration,” which gave him the opportunity to become creative.
He adds that after 15 years of creating cocktail menus, every single one required a variation of a Martini, and gave him the opportunity to further hone his craft.
Stand-out Martinis
One of the reasons I was so keen to sit down and chat Martinis with Collina is he is the maker of at least three of the best I have ever tried, which simply could not be a coincidence.
While each of those Martinis live in my head rent free, there is one that occupies my thoughts on a weekly basis: the Walter Gibson, first created by Collina in 2016 for .
“It was all based off the idea of Vouvray [French wine], which has a lot of orchard fruit profiles, but also has this kind of wet wool, waxy profile – aged Vouvray always has that,” Collina explains. “So what I did is I basically mimicked the tasting notes of that to create the Walter Gibson.”
He did this by incorporating Moulin Touchais, a sweet wine from the Loire Valley in France with a Chenin base. To this he added a pear or apple eaux-de-vie, “depending on what iteration we had in. We had an apple eaux-de-vie specifically made for us from St George Spirits in California that was also made for Madison Park,” he says. Then he used a mix of blanc and dry vermouths, alongside a combination of vodka and high-strength gin.
“When I create Martinis, I always look at the model of the Vesper, because for me, that’s the perfect style of Martini; you have a split base of gin, vodka, and a lot of the time you then have something like a fortified wine, like a Cocchi Americano or Lillet, or something like that, which gives it body. It also gives it a little bit of bitterness, or herbaceousness that you get from the roots that are in it. And then you can also play around with a lot of the bitters. So that’s kind of how the Walter Gibson kind of came into play.”
Beyond the liquid, Collina also created the custom glassware designed specifically and exclusively for the serve, using the bottom of a Zalto AP white wine glass as inspiration. flipping the bottom shape and redesigning the top while maintaining the same stem height, thinness, and base plate.
The presentation also includes changing pickled garnishes such as blackcurrants, peppers and radishes, all tangy and addictive, and perfectly complementary to the sweetness of the drink itself.
The second of my favourite Martinis Collina has put his name to is the Seaside Martini, served at the roopftop bar of Guest House No. 42 in Margate on England’s south-east coast.
This Martini is crafted with Boatyard gin, vermouth, Everleaf Marine and apple nori, and served alongside one of the most beautiful sea views in Kent.
Similar to the Walter Gibson, this serve boasts a silky viscosity that coats the mouth, removing any harshness of the alcohol and making each sip indulgent. Meanwhile, the apple nori brings a contrast of sweetness and salinity that keeps the palate on its toes.
Collina explains: “When I look at a Martini, the way I make it is very much in a wet style, because I like the body of a Martini more than anything. I think playing around with vermouths and fortified wines means you create a lot more texture that you don’t always get in a Martini. You know, a lot of people have coined the strong, dry ‘punch you in the face’ Martini. My Martinis are much more savoury and wet. And also, I add a lot of fruit aspects to it. I love eaux-de-vies in Martinis.”
He shares that he likes to use ingredients like Pineau de Charentes, a fortified wine that uses must of grapes, which is then fortified with Cognac to provide a very viscous quality, but with the sweetness of grapes. “There’s a product called Barsol Perfecto Amor, which uses the exact same process, but in Peru. They use Peruvian grapes a lot of times, like Italica or Muscat grapes, and they press them and then they fortify the juice with pisco, so you have this very grape, winey quality, but it has the body of actual grape, like a grape juice.”
This brings us onto the third Martini love of my life, Viajante87’s Glacier Martini, which was inspired by the glacial fjords in Patagonia, and is served at a temperature of -18ºC.
As we chatted, Collina removed the pre-bottled serve from the freezer and poured it into an ice-chilled glass over a smoked olive garnish for us to enjoy while we continued chatting.
“To be honest, this is my favourite Martini,” Collina says.
The cocktail was inspired by Francis Mallmann, an Argentinian chef known for his Patagonian cuisine and expertise in open-fire cooking.
To make this Martini, Collina opted for Apostles Gin, which heralds from Buenos Aires, as the base spirit. “We add Barsol Perfecto Amor as the lengthener, as well as utilising different types of vermouth. Then we also use a touch of glycol and glycerin into it.” This, he notes, allows them to pre-batch the entire thing, and then put in the freezer. He explains that the glycol and glycerin lower the freezing temperature of the drink, allowing for a pre-batched wet Martini that can be served at -18ºC without running the risk of the liquid freezing. “It’s like a much more simple kind of Martini. It has the body to it – but then you can serve it super cold.”
Finding inspiration
Naturally, Collina has created far more Martinis than the three I have mentioned, and I’m intrigued to know where he finds his inspiration and starting place for creating each of his recipes.
“I think about the ingredients I want to showcase,” he says. “Once you get to a point of making a lot of cocktails, like I have for 15 years, you know what flavours work together, so then you start playing with body.”
He shares that food also plays a big part in his creation process. “One of my favourite Martinis I have ever done was at Davis and Brooke, where I basically created a Dirty Martini inspired by bread with butter and anchovies, often found in Spain and Italy. I love that combination.”
For the making of that Martini, Collina butter-washed vodka, and then made his own olive brine by using different types of salt and herbs. The Martini was garnished with a very thin cracker with a little swipe of butter and an anchovy on top. “I think that with my background from Italy, a lot of times you eat and drink together, like a kind of apéritif, so I always think about the food more than anything,” he adds.
And when it comes to the presentation of a Martini, Collina says the cleaner the better. “I think you can overdo it sometimes. I think once you get into a territory where you’re using powders, or I’ve seen people use paints before on the side of a glass, while yes they can work, I personally like it very clean.”
The theatre of the Martini
Of course, the presentation of the Martini goes beyond its garnish, and there is sometimes an element of theatre that comes with the serving of the drink, which is beginning to open up the Martini to a new wave of consumers.
“I think it’s an interesting time now. Ten years ago, I think people who ordered Martinis were drinkers who had a very specific idea of how they wanted their Martini – it had to be ice cold or it had to have the right dilution. People were very much more specific of their style, and it was kind of like a fingerprint for them.
“I think nowadays, people are much more open to the to the concept of what a Martini is. And I think people like Alessandro, and people like Ago, they’re amazing – they’re showmen, you know, and they’re Italian. I know a lot of bartenders who aren’t Italian, who aren’t showmen, or aren’t as confident and stuff, who make some of the best Martinis in the world, but maybe they aren’t as popular because they don’t have the whole package.
“I think a Martini for how simple it is can show a lot of personality, and it can show a lot of craft of a bartender, just from like the way that you present your frosted glass, to the way that you cut your citrus right in front of a guest. Alessandro and Ago have done incredibly well promoting that idea of drinking Martinis for anybody who doesn’t really drink cocktails.”
However, he notes, the key is that the drink itself remains the star, with the theatre serving to highlight its quality and the bartender’s skill.
So, is there a Martini out there for everyone? Collina thinks so.
“I think a Martini is one of those things where you have to get through your third,” he says. “You know, the first time you go to a bar and you have your first one, you might think ‘oh, that’s fine’. And then you need to get through your second and then maybe by your third or fourth one, then you’re like, ‘Oh, Martinis – that’s what I drink’. It’s a long game. And then it becomes people’s personalities, and it becomes like ‘oh, that’s the girl that always drinks Martinis!’”
Due to the myriad of ways a Martini can be personalised to the consumer’s taste, Collina shares that the drink also serves as the perfect opportunity for a bartender to show that they’re listening. “It’s good for the bartender to be like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the guy who has perfect Martinis’, or the one that likes it with a twist. It’s like people with a dog – you know the dog’s names, but know don’t know the owners’ names all the time, right? It’s the same if you’re a bartender – you might not know the customer’s name, but you know their Martini order. So that’s a good way to show you’re listening, that you’re paying attention.”
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