Behind the bar
The best waiter's friend, the pink-handled Victorinox knife, the miscellaneous chuff
Step inside Joyau you’re immediately greeted by the scale of the space. We’re not talking resplendent grandeur, it’s more modest than that. But it is an archway so the lofty ceiling makes it feel bigger than it looks from the outside. You’ll see a 3-metre long table, yellow and white Mullca-style stacking chairs, an oak banquette that runs the length of the left-hand wall, a disco ball.
All this is visible and obvious. What you can’t see is behind the bar.
It’s not a glamorous stretch of space; it’s more like a highly-functional corridor lined with wine racks, a fridge and glass washer on one side; and two taps rigged up with various (often obstructing) kegs on the other.
I’d love to know how many steps I’ve done behind this tranche of space. As a team, we’ve probably walked miles, going back and forth over the same 2.5-square-metre spot. Except the kitchen, it’s the most productive bit of the bar but it’s not the prettiest.
It’s not a dumping ground but invariably things are dumped, or rather dropped between opening bottles, making a round of Sbagliatos, polishing glasses, leaving the bar looking scattered with bottle openers, corks, empty glasses, bar backs and slices of lemon. It’s only at the end of the night, when we clean down and reset the space that everything is put back in its rightful home.
We did buy a small set of Perspex drawers from Muji and for a while, we kept it rigorously organised, using the top drawer exclusively for chalk, the middle for bottle stoppers, the third for miscellaneous chuff (candles, lighters, batteries etc.)
This is what it looks like right now:
Behind the bar feels like a refuge during service. It’s where we retreat back to once we’ve done our rounds on the floor, picking up dirty glasses, empty bottles and crumpled napkins, doing the quick dance of putting them in the glass washer, recycling bin and laundry crate before going back out there.
Try as we might to have sections – delegating an area to a member of our team to manage for the night – invariably, we all end up toeing into the same territory. We’ll take drinks orders while running food, pull pints while polishing glasses, pick out some wines from the fridge to recommend to a table as the 7:15pm reservation walks through the door. But the bar is always where we come back to; it’s home base in a game of 40 40.
We have five waiter’s friends but we only really like using one of them. It’s a Murano one with a rubber handle and double lever action – useful for getting a good purchase on the bottle neck as you prize out a cork. It’s branded with the name of one of the most recognisable producers of orange wine; Radikon.
Our other waiter’s friends work perfectly fine and they’re even a bit fancier, but they’re just not as grippy or satisfying to use so it’s always a bit of a scramble to claim the blue Radikon one.
Another tool we can’t be without behind the bar is the pink Victorinox serrated knife. It’s perfect for cutting citrus into fine slivers, which we use to garnish cocktails. Its pink handle is also easy to spot and at the end of the night, it’s this same knife we use to prize the drip trays apart so they can go through the glass washer.
If you don’t have a Victorinox serrated knife in your ammunition already, get one! They come in heaps of fun colours and you can even find ones that come in a set of two.
While you can’t see the rhythm behind the bar, you can hear it – the clink of glasses, the swoosh of the glass washer, the quiet hum of the chillers, the gurgle of the coffee machine. In an attempt to drown out the mechanical whirrs and burrs, we tend to lean on two Spotify playlists Joyau Breakfast/Afternoon a more subdued, mellow soundtrack to ease you into the day and Joyau Evening a higher-energy selection with quite a few heavy baselines that mirrors the controlled chaos of a Friday night service.
Put them on, pour yourself a drink, and you could be right behind the bar with us you’re right there with us, navigating drawers of “miscellaneous chuff” and claiming your favourite waiter’s friend.
Until next time, have a good one!