Sempre: Konstantin Ponomarev

The hero of our new interview is the bar manager of the Sempre restaurant Konstantin Ponomarev. Konstantin told us about the restaurant, his love for experiments in drinks and the importance of a team for any project.

Tell us a little about yourself: how did you come to this profession?

My name is Konstantin Ponomarev, and I, like many in my profession, did not think that I would end up in it. I wanted to earn extra money and went to a bar that was not at all suitable for developing - this was in Solnechnogorsk. I definitely didn’t plan to stay in this profession, because I studied at MADI to become an environmental engineer and connected my entire future with this direction.

Everything was calm and quiet until the guys offered me a job in Moscow catering. For some reason they noticed me and said, “Why don’t you stay here and work with us? Want?". It was “Coffeemania” - there I met Olga Melik-Karakozova, she is a five-time Russian coffee champion, and she found something in me. A month later, she sent me to an internship - training began, I already began to understand something - when you quickly succeed at something, and you see progress, you begin to work harder at it.

So you started your journey with coffee?

Yes, I started doing coffee. My first place of work was a place where nothing special happens, you don’t do anything special, you just pour, without knowing anything about drinks - this is called “pouring” by professionals.

When I started making coffee, I already understood that people were trying, doing something - before, coffee was a product that you brewed for yourself, and brewed, pressing buttons, and something worked, but it turned out that there was a lot of things: dosages, gramming, tempering - they began to explain all this, taught me how to draw latte art... Time passed, and they opened “Caffeine” - they took me there as an assistant, I was interested, I quickly became a chef barista, I began to develop in this direction , and at some point my life was connected only with coffee.

A barista has several stages of development: you just brew coffee, you roast coffee, you go to plantations, watch and harvest crops, and then you start selling it and developing it as a product. I got to the point of roasting, and I didn’t like it at all: you stand there, fry something on the roaster, punching out profiles. I was not interested and I realized that I needed to do something different and go somewhere further. Roughly speaking, from the position of head bartender, I jumped to the position of line bartender at the Ragout restaurant on Belorusskaya, and I really liked it. There was a very cool bar manager there - Natalya Davydova, she told me everything, showed me how to do it, there were a lot of trainings, and I realized that not only in some narrow area you can achieve something, and I too - then I can.

We opened the second Ragout on Prospekt Mira, I already felt what it means when you do something with your own hands, open a restaurant - this is the next stage when interest appears. And they began to take an interest in me as a person who discovers something - a lot of people asked how, what to do.

Then I went to work for Perelman. This is a very cool guy, I love everything he does, all his restaurants. We started with Wine&Brut, and it went further - every restaurant, everything we did impressed people. Then “Pisces” appeared, we worked for 5 years, opened “Depot” - all three corners and 1 restaurant - Tinto, and now I found myself in this wonderful place.

One era passes, and another comes - I wanted to work in another project, I was invited here, and I think that I even won something - every month we come up with new cocktails, we have themed weeks of different national cuisines every quarter, and every story implies something new, something interesting. We have a lot of people, and most often the guests are satisfied - this is a piece of paradise, even in winter this whole green fairy tale sets the mood for something good.

What was your biggest discovery in your work?

Every year, when you go to MBS, PIR and other exhibitions, you meet many professionals in their field, they give you some food for thought, so that you think and do something interesting in your place. For example, the kombucha trend that we've had all our lives at Grandma's is now gaining such momentum that you can't imagine a good bar without it. This is one component that has changed the course of the bar industry for. After such events you come back and think: “Wow! Come on, do it, dude, you have everything for this!

There is, of course, a rotary vacuum evaporator, which is now in fashion... Innovations are always perceived at first as expensive toys that are not needed, and stillThis rotary vacuum evaporator will probably soon be available to all worthy bartenders. It’s like before, guests didn’t understand why they should drink alcoholic Negroni, they didn’t know about matcha and a bunch of other ingredients - this is how drinking culture develops - you just need to talk, tell, explain.

What achievements in your profession are you proud of?

Well, I don’t have any special achievements - I didn’t participate in competitions... It’s enough for me that people in the field know who I am - I’m not a public person, it’s only important for me that they think well of me professionally.

But in general, when you open new projects, it is important to know that you will be able to leave this establishment, and then you will not be ashamed of the person on whom you put all this on. I can say that I have assembled very worthy teams: there have never been such problems that someone stole something or drank something. In all the places where I worked, there were people you could rely on.

Working with a team is always my favorite activity: a lot of people pass through me, and you always try to maximize their potential, and they, in turn, teach me a lot.

What is interesting about the restaurant (besides the gorgeous greenery, of course)? Tell us more about its concept.

The concept of the establishment is that guests and people who work here communicate on equal terms - not provocatively, of course, but no one stands at attention either. A bartender or waiter can approach any person and chat on any topic; none of the management prohibits this. If a guest wants to drink (within reasonable limits), everything happens in a friendly manner. The bartender behind the bar is never silent, everyone communicates, gets high, no one gets tense. In my memory, there was only one guest who “didn’t like it.”

We have communal tables, and people who are not used to this may be indignant, but our managers and managers are ready to communicate. We are generally very loyal to our guests: didn’t you like the dish or drink? No problem - we remove it from the bill, offer another one until the guest is satisfied. The only thing we insist on is that we will not be able to fulfill specific requests for drinks, but we will offer what is on the menu: there are classics and there are our twists, which we will not change. We don’t use straws - only the waiters have them and are given upon request.

Why?

Because a cocktail consists of ice, ingredients and a glass, and everything is done to ensure that the taste is as rich as possible. If you change something, the wrong feeling of taste will remain.

Do you cook classics or do you experiment more?

We are experimenting more. On Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday - any day in the evening the guys make a lot of cocktails. We host about 3,000 cocktails a month, and about 20 percent of them are classics - everyone comes just for our cocktails. We try to talk about what we've done for themed weeks, and when I look at sales, I see that as the theme week starts, guests start drinking a lot of cocktails from the themed menu, and they come for them.

Can a guest's opinion influence your decision about a menu item or recipe change?

We have a menu of, say, 15 cocktail items, and if a guest claims that this cocktail should be made differently, it’s not difficult for me to test this story, and if my colleagues and I understand that this is really better, then we update the cocktail if no, then we leave it. All this is very subjective, and if one person says “good” and ten say “no,” then I’d rather make this cocktail for ten people - that’s logical.

What's the craziest guest request you've ever had to fulfill?

There were no exclusive conditions here - frameworks were immediately set. If we have a cappuccino of one size, and a guest asks for a double one, of course, I won’t tell him that I won’t make it, but I’ll make one cappuccino first, and then a second one - the proportions of milk and coffee exist for a reason. Flat whites, piccolo, cappuccino - these are all different proportions of coffee to milk - these are all different drinks. The same goes for cocktails. Whether a person wants it is not a question, just not in this place :) We try to accustom people to the fact that there is a drinking culture, and it must be adhered to and developed, which is what we are passionate about here.

But there is a wonderful story from “Caffeine”: one regular guest always ordered a latte 72 degrees with 0.5 cm of foam and 15 ml of nut syrup. I had a thermometer and a ruler, and if I did something wrong, they forced me to redo it.

Is it difficult to come up with new drinks?

It seems to me that everythingit was already possible to come up with it, it was already invented before us, there are certain technologies that professionals use. But every year, of course, new ingredients are introduced: kombucha - “wow, cool stuff!” (we have Fedya mushroom, and incredible things can be done with it); kalpis - “I can add it here and there, try it.” You can always mix and try what comes out at the bar. And we try to use everything that is in this world, and it turns out very well.

China, for example, was created according to this principle: there are foods that are eaten in China, alcohol that is drunk in China - combine, try, experiment. We made about 20 cocktails of different formats and different tastes to try - trials, errors, a lot of raw materials used, but everything turned out great, the cocktails are drunk, the guests are happy.

What guides you, what inspires you?

I have a one-year-old child, and I constantly buy him something new to try, and before preparing for Chinese week, I brought lychee, he ate everything, and I thought - that’s it, if my son liked it, we’ll introduce it :)

Yes, in fact, you just think about how to connect things, and something comes out. You can cook complete garbage from the same ingredients, but change the proportions and it’s a bomb. I didn’t open America to anyone here—everyone knows that.

Tell us about the current bar trends – do you follow them?

I talked about a rotary vacuum evaporator - I haven’t gotten around to it yet, and until I understand what I want and need to do, I won’t blindly repeat it. We don't chase anything, but do what we think is right. And we have a lot of guests who love it.

What equipment do you use most often?

Nothing special - dehydrators, sous-vides - everything that ordinary bars use for garnish and fuse. But I have a jigger, and the cheapest one - I bought it for 400 rubles at my first job - I still carry it with me, and if I go somewhere with gests, I only work with it. In principle, he could just be standing somewhere nearby, but the most important thing is not to forget him. It is signed, and they even gave it to me from different cities where I forgot it, so I haven’t lost it anywhere yet.

How do you approach choosing tableware? What is important to the Sempre team?

We have our own dishes, and we will not exchange them for anything, but if the dishes suit our establishment, then we will take them, for example, at Complex Bar we are happy to take wine glasses, teapots and Nick&Nora - absolutely everything looks beautiful in them.

What is the most difficult part of your job?

There are a lot of moments in this business that are just worth experiencing, but you don’t really focus on them, so there’s nothing like that.

And the most pleasant?

When you do some work and it works out. When you give a tasting, and all this goes well, when you see that guests drink these cocktails, and a lot - this is the most pleasant thing there is.

If you knew for sure that everything would work out, what else would you like to do professionally?

Wine, maybe... Although I usually try not to touch on this topic - how many times have we discussed cocktails with wine - after all, this is a separate product.

I think that I am very good at opening restaurants, launching them, and this is what I want to do, just change locations - not only Moscow, maybe even somewhere abroad.

And outside the restaurant industry... We, bartenders, waiters, managers, literally live at work, this is our second family, so I don’t even know what we could do :)

What do you need to do to become a professional in your field?

You should like your business, it should not be work. If this is work, then that’s it, the person is missing. If you go to work and don't look at the clock when you have to leave, then you are a winner.