One Trick Pony is no one-hit wonder: this Freiburg bar is making history
MEIKO provides flawless glassware and kitchenware at One Trick Pony
Mr Wonky, Wally Walnut and Captain Pugwash come together to form the Chaos Coco Club who has a bone to pick with Doctor Bergamotto. The Falcon, Poison Ivy and many more are all part of the action, too. Sound exciting? It is! The action is not onscreen, though, it is on the drinks menu. One Trick Pony and its menu have both won awards for their originality. Here, drinks are represented by comic-book heroes and you can meet all kinds of characters.
Just one year after opening, this bar in the Freiburg's old town was already named one of the best bars in the state. The sensation hit at the 2018 Mixology Awards, the Oscars of the cocktail world. Any bar would be honoured to receive just one award but bar owners Andreas Schöler and Boris Gröner and their team did not stop there, taking home three! That was a first in Mixology history. ‘New Bar of the Year,’ ‘Bar Menu of the Year’ and ‘Mixologist of the Year’ was the hat-trick which catapulted One Trick Pony into the spotlight. Nobody really joins that exclusive club of the top few ranked bars in the state with just one trick,
No matter how well you practise and polish it. You'll need a lot more than one. ‘It's about what makes a good restaurateur,’ Schöler hits the nail on the head. A narrow walkway leads up into the striking two-storey vault which seems both spacious and small enough to be pulsating with life. It suits the bar's motto: ‘fine drinks & diving.’ These days, One Trick Pony's reputation precedes it and, although not all visitors know exactly what here is prize-winning, customer numbers have doubled practically overnight. The main ingredients in this success are the joy of experimentation and uncompromising quality, mixed by pulling out all of the stops when it comes to technology and craftsmanship. The 24 drinks on the menu are crafted in a kitchen that would make many a chef jealous. 91 ingredients go into those 24 drinks and many are local – they're proud of that. Guests can watch their drinks being crafted; there's no room here for industry paranoia. Get stuck in!
"We don't use complex techniques just because we can. If there is an easier way to do something, we'll use it. After all, we're restaurateurs,’ says Schöler. So what makes a good restaurateur? ‘You have to know your customer and know your city. When all is said and done, your aim is to bring people together for a good time away from their work. Usually people really don't care how much effort has gone into their drink.’
Getting it right is important for the warewashing technology, too, so One Trick Pony uses top-class technology – MEIKO. The bar staff serve approximately 400 drinks each evening. All the while, one member of the team is washing constantly and that is a tricky task with glassware. The glasses are simply structured but some are hand painted. ‘The machine washes so well that we do not have to polish the glasses at all. They simply cool briefly and go straight into the froster,’ reports a happy Schöler. There's more to wash than the glasses, though. With so many ingredients involved, the warewashing technology in the kitchen has to handle syrups, fruit pulp and much more. Some is dried on, some isn't. Whatever comes out of the kitchen after experiments or making drinks for customers, all of it goes through a MEIKO machine. That ensures the kitchen stays sparkling. Sometimes it really is that easy peasy – no matter how many lemons you need to squeezy!
