Article and photography by Fitz
Lead photo of Tory Siebels at Esoteric
Gender neutral drinks. Gender accessible cocktails. They’re my words, not Tory Siebels. And likely, those phrases I’m conjuring up at the moment are a direct, and unfortunate, influence of the P.C. times I’m living in these days. None the less, I guess, they’re accurate enough in describing one of the key takeaways I got when asking Esoteric’s rather busy front of the house manager what defines her cocktail program.
Esoteric’s Front of the House manager Tory Siebels during service
You see, Siebels has a full plate at Esoteric. She manages seven servers, three bartenders, and three hostesses. She doubles as a server when the restaurant is hopping. She is the face of customer service to the patrons. Daily, she is concerned with front of the house and back of the house relations. Constantly, she is tippy toe’n over to the window at the pass to expedite orders. Once you talk with her a bit however, it’s clear that creatively she gets her fill when disseminating booze in a manner more inclusive to both sexes. As she put it, “I want to make drinks for everyone. It’s not that some women don’t like an old fashioned, but mostly men do. So I wanted to make cocktails with both men and women in mind.”
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At the moment Siebels first told me this, my mind jumped to a rather non P.C. thought. I assumed for a sec she was about to tell me she was into making her cocktails, drunk “white girl” sweet, basically just adding tons of syrups, juices, and other assorted means of delivering large sums of sugar to stamp out the taste of the spirits in cocktails. That however wasn’t the case. As both the food at Esoteric and neighboring restaurant, Commune, have come to be admired for, Siebels’s cocktail program is concerned with the use of local ingredients and seasonal offerings. Her Jalapeño Moscow Mule, for example, uses jalapeño’s from the garden out back and Esoteric’s popular fall cocktail, The Boozey Apple, uses Saunders Brothers apples from Piney River Virginia.
Esoteric’s “Boozey Apple”
Trust garnered Siebels the chance to lead at Esoteric. She used to babysit for Kristina and Tim Chastain, the owners, whom have been, if you will, the Medici’s to Siebels and Chef Ian Hock’s Renaissanceian contributions to food and drink in Virginia Beach. As Siebels explained to me, “The dynamic between Kristina and I has really grown over the years. We just have a different level of trust. I believe that’s why she let me run with the cocktail program.”
Siebels getting jalapeño out of the back garden for the “Jalapeño Moscow Mule”
Don’t think for a minute however that Siebels is where she is at solely on her friendship with Kristina. At 29, she has been in the industry for over a decade. All you have to do is watch her hold court with her staff to understand she’s both respected and where she belongs.
Siebels with the front of the house staff at Esoteric
For more on Siebels and Esoteric visit esotericvb.com
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