This was not the epiphany of an evangelist of localism, a zealot of working seasonally. Actually it was born out of pragmatism. “I thought: how do you stand out in a market where the drinks are all the same? I realised that instead of using more exotic international flavours, I had to do the opposite.” He wasn’t completely alone – a few bars were showcasing British ingredients at the time but it was the path far less furrowed.   

Working alongside chefs at Galvin at Windows had opened his eyes to what Britain had to offer – and soon he laid aside the stereotypes of British food that are so fondly held in Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean. When he landed at Nipperkin (having come from opening Soma) he had the stage and freedom his new philosophy required. “In Britain you have all these ingredients but we don’t use them. The landscape here is very diverse – you have everything. There are flavours such as sweet woodruff, fig leaves, meddler, quince, meadowsweet. 

“But also raspberries – the best you can get – and good strawberries for six months a year. There are great blackberries, plums, damsons – all of which can be preserved – and you have nuts from November and winter herbs and vegetables: wild garlic, wild onion, wild asparagus. The historical significance of these ingredients is incredible – Queen Elizabeth used to use sweet woodruff inside her pillows.” 

At the heart of seasonal drinks making is preservation, particularly if your bar doesn’t want to change its menu on a weekly or monthly basis. So, taking ingredients at their best and retaining that character becomes the raison d’être. “Yesterday I made a drink from an apricot liqueur I made in 2023. They came from an orchard in Kent and were free with an order of damsons – 3.5kg of apricots made 25 litres of apricot liqueur.”  

What might surprise you is that in Bafas’ latest bar Cato there is no fancy equipment – no rotovaps to process ingredients into something that is shelf stable. Infusions are achieved in the traditional way – racking, filtering and time. And quite often using multiple processes to replicate the spectrum of flavours that fresh fruit brings. The apricot liqueur was first a maceration in a high-alcohol solution, then what was left over was made into a sugar syrup – finally the two were blended together. 

British grown 

Downstairs at Cato everything is British grown – either by the bar, or foraged, or bought from British suppliers. But upstairs the tavern-like House of Julep, which revels in spun classics, might serve as a more useful example to bars across the country. Here British seasonal ingredients accent classics with familiar flavours. Take the Rhubarb Paloma, which draws on one of the great British ingredients of spring and summer. As the perennial stops sprouting its glorious crimson stalks, beetroot is swelling in the fields and blackberries are ripening on bushes. Bafas thinks his summer-autumn Paloma might even be better. 

The Cosmopolitan too swaps out rhubarb in the summer, taking in the warmer months’ lingonberries and raspberries. The Gooseberry & Apple Daiquiri – a deliciously crisp spin on the classic – is another that takes the framework of a classic but not the components. “We’re trying to convince the British that apple is not just an everyday, boring ingredient and that gooseberry has layers of flavour.” 

There’s been the Mustard Gimlet and, if you’re a Gibson drinker, there’s the Wild Garlic Martini, or now in season, the Wild Onion Gibson, with fermented wild onion capers. There’s a Garibaldi too – oranges don’t grow in the UK but sea buckthorn and apricot do. Add in tobacco (which has orange notes) and apple and you have what Bafas calls “a fully British Garibaldi”. 

Bafas works directly with dedicated farms and British suppliers but doesn’t ignore the abundance that spills out of gardens, parks and hedgerows. “I’ve discovered so many flavours free in the streets. Why are we not using them? You see someone sit in a park in central London eating from a punnet of supermarket blackberries surrounded by blackberry bushes! You have lingonberries and fig leaves are everywhere. Making something good doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy.” 

A small haul, processed in the right way, can become a large one. “If you are dealing with something which is limited, either in quantity or in time frame because it is seasonal, you have to amplify the ingredients and extend its life.” 

Bafas is not the first bartender to go native and he won’t be the last, but there aren’t too many not born of this land that have so cherished its bounty. When one of the UK’s best drinks makers – brought up on plump olives and sun-kissed tomatoes – says he loves nothing more than British sea buckthorn and sweet woodruff, it is an argument with an objective quality.