Peter Nguyen

I started out in the kitchen of a luxury hotel with my dad. However, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted even though I appreciate the experience. I wanted to be out there- outside the cage that was the kitchen and go around to greet people, as that was and still is who I really am. I enrolled myself to a cocktail bartending course, then landed a position as a waiter in a cocktail bar that I happened to have found in a Melbourne City’s Cocktail Bars Guide, to which I only stayed for as little as three months before I moved onto a new place. Those three months somehow, magically, followed me everywhere I went for the next three years. The fact that it had given me a goal to pursue, friends to reach out to overseas, and a few mentors with nothing but true words of wisdom, it was like everything had happened for a reason. After three months I moved across the road to an Asian-themed Cocktail Bar, in which I was given a few lessons on flavors, workflow, people, and also the opportunity to travel to Sydney. Back then to me this was like moving up to another world of drinks. On my 21st birthday I got completely smashed, and somehow ended up posting a ‘looking for job’ ad online. To my surprise I received a bit of attention the next morning. I remember writing something like, “Funny Asian looking for bar work, don’t need much, just enough food to feed my learning”. At the end of the year, I packed my bags and went up to Sydney to learn at one of the best cocktail institutions a young boy could ask for at the time, Palmer & Co. Looking back retrospectively, I truly appreciate every second and every single person there, for their wise contribution to who I am today. I then moved to London after a one and half year stint at Palmer & Co. With a little help from a friend there, (leading to another friend of another friend of another friend) I landed a position at a prestigious hotel bar in Mayfair. However, it was only a short six-month experience until I decided to take a little break in Vietnam teaching and sharing.

Two months later I decided to give it my all until the end of my working visa. Again, a friend of a friend of a friend living in Singapore introduced me to the bar he was currently working at in Mayfair. The moment I walked in, it was like another Palmer & Co, just a greater challenge and different crowd. For that last one year, I did a little trade with the ‘bar God’ himself: my time in exchange for the skills and knowledge. It was one of the biggest hurdles of which I am happy to have survived, and I also got myself a crew to follow me to Vietnam. A new chapter began, to which we are still waiting for an ending.