Chef Adam Handling has ventured out of London to open Ugly Butterfly Bar, a Cornish bar and restaurant on the waterfront at Carbis Bay. Following in the footsteps of his flagship bar in London – Eve Bar, Ugly Butterfly utilises waste from the restaurant to create innovative takes on classic cocktails, with a focus on sustainability and high quality ingredients.
Inspiration for and ingredients used within the cocktail menu are available for all to see on Ugly Butterfly’s ‘Gallery of creativity’ – a dedicated wall of kilner jars filled with by-products from the kitchen which have been saved, preserved and fermented to be used within cocktails throughout the year. Ensuring waste is kept to a minimum Head bartender Josh Linfitt and his team use innovative techniques to preserve otherwise wasted or seasonal produce, resulting in ingredients including; spent coffee syrup, beef fat whisky and strawberry vinegar to name a few.
Sustainability is at the heart of all menus and techniques used at Ugly Butterfly’s Bar, with all cocktail ingredients locally sourced, meaning if it can’t be found in the South of England, it simply won’t be on the menu. No lemons or limes will feature, and the team uses creative methods or ingredients to replace these traditionally essential cocktail ingredients. From Gorse flowers used to replace the coconut in a Pina Colada in the Gorse Got Soul cocktail, to ‘urban foraging’ techniques used to source the skins of lemons and limes from other bars in the area to create syrups, resulting in citrus flavours, without ever having the fruit behind the bar.
Drinks on the menu include a Conish take on a dry martini – The Fal-Town, created by infusing shucked oyster shells and their juices into Ketel One Vodka, finished with samphire and seaweed from the Cornish coast. The Cheeky Monkey is a simple and clean take on a Manhattan with a hint of banana, finished with cornish fudge, using off cuts of the petit fours served in the restaurant.
Josh and his bar team have created a low and no-alcoholic cocktail menu with local and sustainable spirit and drinks brands at its core. Highlights on the menu include the Rose Spritz with Everleaf Mountain, foraged berry shrub and finished London Essence jasmin & white peach soda, Dawny Wave (4% abv) with Discarded Cascara Vermouth, Served raspberry hard seltzer and salted cornish honey and Tea First with almond, tea and mint soda and berry essence.
All cocktails on the Ugly Butterfly menu are created to be clean and neat to pair perfectly with Adam Handling’s restaurant menu. By using super premium ingredients throughout the restaurant and bar, even when cocktails feature waste or off-cuts they are still high quality and full of local flavour.
For more information or to make a reservation, head over to Ugly Butterfly Bar’s official website.
