Having won Diageo World Class Bartender of the Year in 2022, you would assume Adrián Michalčík had started out on a career in the bar industry. But “it was not really my plan to become a bartender,” he says. “I played hockey professionally.”
However, hospitality played a big part in his life and upbringing in Czechoslovakia, as Michalčík says: “I saw it from a very early age and it’s just kind of been natural for me. We were hosting our friends or neighbours, my mum was preparing food, picking up wine or some spirits and preparing glasses.”
After applying late to do the sports studies he initially planned, Michalčík found himself at a hotel academy and then behind the bar. From there he “fell in love with the bar”, but still managed to bring his sports passion with him. Michalčík adds: “I find some kind of connection with the bar since I played hockey as a goalkeeper. You have the players in front of you when bartending, so it’s kind of like a team sport.” In 2015, a er getting a job in Prague at L’Fleur bar, Michalčík’s first thought was that he would be fired – “I didn’t have any knowledge”. But a er working behind the scenes to learn the craft, he stayed and began to be inspired.
This in turn led to an interest in the competition world. When working in Prague, Michalčík says a lot of it came from watching others he looked up to competing, particularly those at L’Fleur. “It kind of woke up this curiosity about competing and the next year I decided to join [Diageo World Class], with only one year of experience in mixology, and I ended up in the top six.”
In 2017, Michalčík moved to Norway and shortly a er joined Pier 42 at the Amerikalinjen Hotel in Oslo. Having only worked at a select number of bars, Michalčík believes his success is down to staying put for periods of time, instead of moving around frequently. He likes to “absorb” and thinks “there is always something more that you can learn”.
In the run-up to competing in Diageo World Class, Michalčík says he was “thinking about cocktails 24/7, about the storytelling, about the aromas” as he was “dreaming about this for six years.” Not expecting to win, his target was to beat his initial sixth place. “It was a mix of emotions. It sounds like a cliche because people say if you have a dream, follow that and work hard on it every day, but that’s exactly what I did, I reached my dream and that’s seriously one of the most beautiful feelings I went through in my life,” he adds.
But there is a responsibility that comes with the win. “I don’t see myself as the world’s best bartender because it’s very hard to say who is the best. In that moment, I was the person who had grown and was ready, prepared. I was in the right place at the right moment. It is also a responsibility to be seen now as one of the leaders for the industry.”
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Currently embarking on a 10-day tour of Asia in collaboration with The Singleton, Michalčík adds: “It’s super-inspiring, because it’s connected to travelling, and now I have a chance to speak to people in different countries and to absorb their cultures, learn about their techniques, their ingredients. I’m happy that I can inspire people, but I also like to be inspired by different people.”
Outside the bar
Aside from the bar world and competing, Michalčík appreciates time in nature, continuing with sports and taking cold baths as a form of meditation. “I’m trying to not lose myself in this and I truly believe balance is very important in our lives.
“Sport helps me to kind of switch off my head from everything and just be myself, which is sometimes very much needed. For example, in the creative process, when I was preparing myself for the competition, I spent a couple of hours on a cocktail and I wasn’t 100% happy with it. Then a er doing a different activity, I came back and it’s like entering the same room but from a different door.”
With his current work as director of mixology at Pier 42, Michalčík explains: “We focus on cocktails with storytelling, which is adding value into the drinks, because everyone loves stories and they can create emotions. In a bar you will often not remember what was in a cocktail, you may just remember it was tasty, but you will probably remember how it made you feel.”
Pier 42 explores the connection between its location, Norway, and its New York namesake, and Michalčík’s cocktail menu creation involves putting together “all the information about the exact inspirations and then working out popular flavours or tastes, and which ones I would love to have in the cocktail menu. I then think about the stories behind them, how to connect them together, and how to express them in a visual style.”
