HARRY BELL
Denmark’s best bartender talks about the importance of bars
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2021 ıPHOTO: BAHADIR BADI BERBERı VIDEO: EMILIO VALENTIN, SIMON BERTHELSEN
He got his start in bartending at age 17. He has since worked in bars around the world before eventually settling as head bartender at TaTa in Copenhagen. Join us in a video interview as award-winning and charismatic mixologist Harry Bell speaks on the importance of bars as a social function.
Also, do not miss this article in which Harry teaches you how to create perfect, simple cocktails for any setting.
The function of a bar is that of a social environment.
I love people and I love connecting with people. And that, for me, is what makes bartending so interesting.
Born in Milano, Italy, Harry Bell got his passion for cocktails at an early age from watching bartenders work in the bar around the corner from his parent’s home. He got his first job in the industry at age 17 and steadily worked his way up. Bartending was, at first, a way for Harry to pay his way through school, but eventually turned into a career that saw him working in numerous bars around the world. A career that has, for now, culminated in a position as head bartender at TaTa Cocktail Bar in Copenhagen and the title of Best Bartender Denmark at Bartender’s Choice Awards 2020.
Bartender’s Choice Awards is one of the most prestigious awards on the Nordic Bar Scene. But to Harry, bartending is not at all about egos and awards. It is an honored artform and a social calling.
To Harry Bell, serving cocktails is less about getting people happily tipsy than it is performing a social function. To Harry, bars are the original Facebook and a legitimate superior alternative to what he calls the distancing fakeness of social media. They are places where you can relax, socialize, participate in conversation if you so desire or simply sit silently by yourself and see the world scroll by. Whatever suits your mood. The role of the bartender, he believes, is one of a moderator: To listen. To cater.To please. To create the perfect drink for the occasion and in doing so create the perfect setting for the customer.
