Stay gold, stay rock and roll
Cafe-bar Stay Gold Flamingo keeps its signatures even as it works on a new menu
MORE than three years after it opened in September 2021, dual-concept drinking den Stay Gold Flamingo continues to build a legacy.
Its current cocktail selection preserves signatures from earlier menus, in a tradition that is set to continue with its next menu in March.
Located on Amoy Street, the space serves its Central Business District customers as a cafe by day, and a bar by night.
“(The concept) stemmed from my three passions in life – bar, coffee and interior design,” said Jerrold Khoo, co-founder and creative director of Stay Gold Flamingo.
Leaning on his background in interior design, Khoo intends to bring customers on a spatial journey.
In the front is a 20-seater cafe, Flamingo – a name that both captures its vibrant pastel-pink ambience and represents Khoo’s own tall and lanky physique.
Behind a discreet side door lies private room Studio 69, which can hold up to 10 people. With a smart TV, the place is open for booking for both work and play with no extra charge – only a minimum spend requirement.
Through a velvet curtain at the back of the cafe, the space opens up to a different dimension: funky high-energy bar Stay Gold. The name was inspired by Robert Frost’s poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, and acts as a reminder to cherish the present.
The bar exudes an edgy rock-and-roll spirit. A shimmering ripple-mirror ceiling reflects purple neon lights that spell out the line “Nothing Gold Can Stay”.
Along the wall are old photos of Khoo’s rock band, as well as the actual jacket he used to wear performing on the stage during his school days, before he ventured into F&B and honed his bartending skills at Jigger & Pony for eight years.
Khoo sees parallels between performing onstage and making drinks behind a bar: both ways of making or breaking someone’s night.
“Though I can’t be a rock star, the next closest thing is to be behind the bar,” said Khoo.
In Stay Gold, a jacket is an identity statement not just for rock stars, but bartenders. Its current menu That’s a Nice Jacket pays tribute to the team’s grungy yet neat workwear.
It features 15 tipples divided into five colour-themed sections. Each colour on the bartenders’ artfully paint-splattered jackets represents their level of seniority: from white through, blue, purple, pink and eventually red.
The menu follows that same logic, from less experimental tipples in the white section – representing induction to the bartending world – to the more complex purple section that showcases craft and technique, and the pink section which includes coffee cocktails in a nod to the cafe elements of Flamingo.
The final red section, which represents the bar’s own character, houses signature drinks carried over from Stay Gold’s previous menus.
One of these, Intro to Absinthe, was created to change the common impression of absinthe as an extremely strong alcohol that even causes hallucinations.
The addition of gin mellows down absinthe’s heavy flavour, while saline water and sparkling coconut water pick up and enhance the herbal notes of absinthe.
Garnished with a dehydrated coconut flake, the highball-style drink offers a refreshing experience with the once notorious alcohol.
The team is developing the next menu, Bartenders’ Diaries. Set to launch in mid- to late March, it will feature 18 drinks representing different phases of a bartender’s career, from classic twists to competition entries.
Yet even as the menu evolves, the three drinks under the red section will likely stay, Khoo noted. After all, the red paint-splattered jacket can only be worn by bartenders who “have the DNA of Stay Gold Flamingo”, he said.
Intro to Absinthe
- 45ml Intro to Absinthe mix of gin, absinthe and cold brew earl grey
- 120ml sparkling coconut water
- 1 dash saline
- Garnished with dried coconut flake
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