The Savoy Hotel’s American Bar

is both historically important and a current trendsetter for bars and mixology, a status it has maintained for more than a century. The lavish London hotel was opened in 1889, adjacent to the Savoy Theatre, by impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte (1844–1901), who staged the popular operettas of William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. He, along with a handful of investors including composer Sullivan, set a new benchmark for British luxury hotels. The first British accommodation to sport electrical lighting as well as constant hot and cold running water in every room, the Savoy also offered its elite clientele a remarkable new feature: en-suite marble bathrooms in nearly all of its 268 rooms.Harvesting the talents of the famed French chef George August Escoffier and hotel manager César Ritz for the hotel’s opening, D’Oyly Carte attracted an extravagant roster of guests, including Edward, Prince of Wales; actress Sarah Bernhardt; and whisky baron Sir Thomas Dewar. The hotel did not, however, open with a dedicated bar. Although it is claimed that it added the American Bar in 1893, it did not, as a 1900 appeals court case shows (the Savoy “had no bar or counter for the sale of intoxicating liquors,” as the facts of the case stated, and sold them only at tables in its grill room and restaurant). In fact, the first mention of an American Bar in the hotel comes from 1903, which suggests it was only installed when Rupert D’Oyly Carte (1876–1948) restructured the hotel after his father’s death. (There was no doubt a service bar before that, where drinks were mixed for the tables as required, and this might explain why the hotel claims that the hotel’s first bartender, Frank Wells, had worked there from 1900 to 1903.)

The American Bar—so named because of the style of drinks that it served, which incorporated ice in their preparation, not after the Americans who provided the bulk of its clientele in its early years—was apparently first presided over by Ruth “Kitty” Burgess, whom customers also called Miss B. By the end of 1903, she was joined by Ada Coleman (1874–1966), whom Rupert moved there from the bar at the Savoy’s sister hotel, the Claridge.

Coleman brought a head full of new drinks and sterling charisma. She and Burgess became known as Kitty and Coley, even though they did not get along. Customers liked Coley’s new cocktail repertoire and bubbling personality. Kitty didn’t know how to mix the new drinks; she asked Coley to give her the recipes, and Coley refused. For twenty years, the pair never spoke if they were on the same shift. Despite Kitty’s seniority, customers assumed that Coley was the head bartender. Then along came Harry.

Hired to work the Savoy’s dispensary bar in 1921, the English-born, American-trained Harry Craddock (1876–1964) used his training and his acquired American accent to turn a new page in the Savoy’s history. As Prohibition in the United States unfolded, American tourists flocked to the Savoy. However, Americans felt it was inappropriate for women to work in barrooms. It appears that Rupert D’Oyly Carte bowed to his patrons’ whims, retiring Kitty and Coley on December 17, 1925, and placing Craddock at the helm. See Craddock, Harry Lawson.

Achieving celebrity status in his own right before he resigned in 1939, in the mere nineteen years he spent there Craddock almost singlehandedly made the American Bar not only famous but peerlessly influential. A large part of that was due to his 1930 compilation The Savoy Cocktail Book, which became an instant classic and has been one of the defining works of mixography for going on a hundred years.

Other notable bartenders followed in his legacy. Eddie Clarke (1939–1942) crafted dedicatory drinks for the British navy, army, and air force. See Clarke, Edwin “Eddie” J. Reginald “Johnnie” Johnson (1942–1954) created a drink for Princess Elizabeth’s marriage to Prince Philip. Joe Gilmore (1954–1975) celebrated astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first walk on the moon with a special creation. Harry “Vic” Vicars (1975–1981) and Victor Gower (1981–1985) saw through the disco years before Peter Dorelli (1985–2000) took to the bar and toasted the end of the twentieth century with his Millennium Cocktail. See Dorelli, Giampiero “Peter”. Seeing the American Bar through to its closing for a major refurbishment, Salim Khoury (2003–2010) created the Blushing Monarch, inspired by the late Princess Diana Spencer, which won him, in 1992, UK Barman of the Year. With the reopening of the Savoy, Erik Lorincz took the helm as head bartender, continuing a long-standing tradition for bartending excellence. When he stepped down in 2018, his place was taken by Maxim Schulte. In 2021 it passed to Shannon Tebay, the first American to hold it.

The bar has been rearranged, redecorated, and rebuilt numerous times over the last century, but it has always remained in the first rank of bars, a place of pilgrimage for cocktail drinkers the world over.

See also Coleman, Ada, and Craddock, Harry Lawson.

Ashburner, F. “Escoffier, Georges Auguste.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Jacobs, Arthur. “Carte, Richard D’Oyly.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Gilmore, Joe and Dorelli, Peter. Interviews, April 12, 2009, October 23, 2010, and December 21, 2015.

“Police Intelligence: Bow Street.” London Evening Standard, December 3, 1903, 9.

The Law Reports, Queen’s Bench Division, 665–670. London: 1900.

Saunders, Minott. “Worked in Silence.” Windsor (ON) Star, February 16, 1926, 19.

By: Anistatia R. Miller and Jared M. BrownSee Craddock, Harry Lawson.See Clarke, Edwin “Eddie” J.See [Dorelli, Giampiero “Peter”.See also Coleman, Ada, and Craddock, Harry Lawson.