The Kulm Country Club - An institution reinvents itself
Andrea Delvò is the boss here. A nice (perhaps too nice) Italian who used to hang out in Antibes, Sardinia and Greece. He reminded me a lot of a Parmesan farmer from Emilia Romagna, who was also too nice at first, and then became my best friend. We talked a bit about what it means to be a barman. Definitely not just a mixologist, we agreed with a laugh. It’s not just throwing stuff together and buying cola. It’s all the experience you gain, a balance of opposites; sour & sweet, bitter & …? The opposite doesn’t exist according to Duden. A good barman must know who peels the oranges he uses in the form of liqueurs. However, hardly anyone appreciates this and it is not obvious to many, but everyone takes it for granted. I wonder if he doesn’t miss it sometimes? I only get rejections and if something is good, nobody says so. You can’t be a bit-part barman, just like you can’t be a bit-part concierge or hotel manager.
Andrea said that you notice a good barman when he leaves the room. He is irreplaceable for the atmosphere of a bar. Mario at the Palace Bar would have been such a man. For 47 years, he would have learned from him and then taken over the bar for ten years. This would, of course, be a suicide mission, like becoming president after someone very legendary. He succeeded. After ten years at the Palace, he went to Greece, came back, set up his own business in Silvaplana and started at the Kulm. There were a few phone calls and when he heard that Mauro Colagreco, a manager from Menton, an intangible UNESCO World Heritage Site, was also starting here, he said yes.
Afterwards, I sat outside on the terrace in the sun, wearing short sleeves. Every now and then, a waiter came by and asked if I needed anything else. You watch people on the ice. There were families skating or playing ice hockey and a woman, who was skating really well. I imagined that this must be a Russian aristocrat, the way she was doing her pirouettes. The sky was blue and the Kulm logo was sticking out of the snow on the right. In front of me, a new drink in the sun. It was impossible to imagine the place full of people at night. But Andrea had said that the club wouldn’t stay the way it is now.
The concept would be aperitifs, food, then maybe dancing, but you don’t have to. It goes without saying that in St. Moritz a DJ is flown in from Lisbon instead of playing something from Spotify, even if there are only three people there. In the afternoon, I dropped in on my Cresta buddies, with my camera of course, to provoke them a little. The man who shouted at me from his loudspeaker last time wasn’t there though. The people were surprisingly friendly and had family rings on the fingers they used to pat managers on the shoulder.
Author: Konstantin Arnold