BOOTHBY: So how did you get into bartending? Where did it all start for you?
DICKY HARTONO: I went to a hotel school in Indonesia, and after I graduated, I got a job in Dubai. I started as a busboy. Obviously, at the time, my English is not that good. I didn’t know much about industry. I went from busboy to waiter. And then one night, there is a nightclub in the hotel and they had a lack of staff. So I was bar backing and washing glasses and everything.
That’s the first time I know Mojitos — at the night club it’s vodka and Red Bull, Mojito, Cosmopolitan, whiskey and cola or Long Island Iced Teas. From there I learned more about bartending.
BOOTHBY: So before this place, you said you were at The Back Room, in the Philippines?
DICKY HARTONO: At the Shangri-La Hotel. Correct.
BOOTHBY: What did you learn there? Were you running the team there?
DICKY HARTONO: Yes. I worked quite a long time with Shangri-La Group. Then I handled a bar in Beijing, it’s called The Atmosphere. One of the highest bars in China, 80th floor. It’s a high-volume bar.
BOOTHBY: So you’re not afraid of heights?
DICKY HARTONO: Yes, definitely.
BOOTHBY: Then you moved to The Back Room in Manila.
DICKY HARTONO: Yes, it’s a speakeasy style of bar at The Shangri-La. Yeah. We developed our own craft spirit, making our own gin.
BOOTHBY: What was the bar scene in Manila like?
DICKY HARTONO: I see a lot of progress now. There’s so many good bars opening, from the small ones, different types of dive bars and cocktail bars, lots of different things going on. And not to forget, there’s a lot of Filipino bartender who actually are very skilful, but they don’t work in the Philippines, they work outside the Philippines.
But some of them have already come back home and developed this, taking the skills they’ve learned elsewhere
BOOTHBY: What brought you to this job at Bangkok?
DICKY HARTONO: So Covid hit pretty badly in the Philippines. And there was an opportunity for an open in Bangkok. And Thailand was the first Southeast Asian country to do activations during Covid — they called it the Phuket sandbox. So people were still able to travel to Thailand, but had to spend two weeks in Phuket, which is not bad, of course, to quarantine. And the Kempinski opened up in this time.
I joined after the hotel had opened for eight months.
BOOTHBY: How do you feel about how the bar’s developed over the time that you’ve been here?
DICKY HARTONO: I’m very happy, I’m very proud of the team, I’m very proud of what we did. We modified the stations so it’s more efficient, it’s faster — the stations were made for hotel bars that were very chill. But now we are able to be a semi high-volume bar.
BOOTHBY: And you’re on your third menu now?
DICKY HARTONO: Correct, yes.
BOOTHBY: How long did it take to develop the menu?
DICKY HARTONO: Six months to develop the whole concept of the new volume of Firefly. Volume number one was all about Thai cultures. And also we developed the story from the old folk songs about firefly, the story is about a dad telling his son that when you see a firefly, actually you can wish your dreams because it’s a mythical creature. It’s about good luck, your dreams come true.
Volume number two was about the great adventure of the firefly around the world, different places.
And this new one, is in pursuit of the firefly. In the city there’s no longer visibility of fireflies, due to so many buildings, so much light pollution. So you can know a little bit more about the firefly by reading our menu. We categorise it into four sections. Etymology is all about how the firefly develops from the egg to larva and everything. Ecosystem is where the firefly laid the eggs, and how it has a role in agriculture industries also in Thailand. And after that, Luminescence, because the firefly is very famous for its light, right? Luminescence is all about light reflections, light colours. And the last one is mythology because in many different cultures around the world, this animal that already exists in the world for a long time, many people will see this as a magical creature, an animal that produces light.
Every single cocktail has a mini fact of the firefly. And we just relate it to the cocktails. For example, the Bamboo Negroni, it takes three weeks for a firefly to grow from the egg to adult. So we also age our cocktail for three weeks in the bamboo stem, which just mellows it down and gives a slightly vegetal flavour. We also infuse a bamboo leaf inside.
BOOTHBY: The menu is quite well designed and clear to understand, with images of the glassware and how it is served. How important is that?
DICKY HARTONO: Being a hotel bar, I think the main purpose of us is to be able to cater to different people. And it’s not too overcomplicated — we don’t want to make our guests overwhelmed with the selection.
BOOTHBY: You don’t want to be too bartender-y about it?
DICKY HARTONO: Correct. So therefore we want to make something like our Bamboo Negroni. People know the Negroni, right?
