EDITORIAL NOTE
Colin Peter Field belongs in the LHL because his nearly three decades at Bar Hemingway demonstrate a distinctive form of grand-hotel stewardship: the bartender as host, curator, improviser, teacher and keeper of institutional memory. Born in Rugby in 1961, Field came to Paris in 1981 to study at Ferrandi and spent years working through hotels, restaurants and competitions before joining the Ritz Paris in 1994 to reopen the Hemingway Bar. He did not create the Ritz-Hemingway connection: Ernest Hemingway’s relationship with the hotel, the earlier Petit Bar, and bartenders such as Georges and Bertin predate him. Field’s authorship was to reactivate that inheritance as a living 25-seat bar rather than a static memorial. He created cocktails including Serendipity, filled the room with personally collected objects, made tailor-made drinks and conversation central to the experience, and helped professionalise bartending education in France. Christie’s described him in 2024 as the former chief bartender after nearly thirty years at the bar. The Ritz today continues the essential grammar he helped establish: intimate scale, unchanged décor, Hemingway objects, no music, conversation, improvisation and bespoke cocktails.
1 · 1961 — RUGBY
Colin Peter Field was born in Rugby, England, in 1961.
2 · PARIS AS DESTINATION
Field’s own biography says a school trip to Paris in 1975 convinced him that he wanted to become a bartender.
3 · THE BEDROOM BAR
Later interviews recall that as a teenager he had already turned his bedroom into a small bar — an early sign that the profession was an ambition rather than an accidental job.
4 · 1981 — PARIS
He arrived in Paris in 1981 and studied at the Ferrandi hotel school.
5 · LEARN THE WHOLE HOUSE
His early career moved through hotels, restaurants, dining-room service and management roles rather than one narrow cocktail apprenticeship.
6 · WESTMINSTER · SCRIBE · WARWICK
His own chronology records work in Paris hotels including Westminster, Scribe and Warwick.
7 · LASSERRE
He also worked as commis and chef de rang at the celebrated restaurant Lasserre.
8 · SERVICE BEFORE MIXOLOGY
This matters because Field’s later bar style depends as much on reading guests and controlling a room as on recipes.
9 · COMPETITIONS
During the early 1980s he entered national and international cocktail competitions.
10 · SILVER
His own biography records silver-level results in French and international bartender competitions.
11 · THE RITZ DREAM
Field repeatedly applied to the Ritz Paris before being hired.
12 · LITERATURE
In a Hemingway Society interview, he recalled that the final opening came partly because the Ritz discovered his literature background included Ernest Hemingway.
13 · 1994 — THE CALL
After multiple unsuccessful attempts, Field joined the Ritz in 1994.
14 · A BAR TO REOPEN
He was hired to reopen the Hemingway Bar rather than simply inherit a thriving operation.
15 · BEFORE FIELD
Field’s own historical account says the space had previously been Le Petit Bar, strongly associated with bartender Bertin.
16 · BERTIN
Bertin had his own clientele; Field later described the room as effectively the 'Bertin Bar' during that earlier era.
17 · 1979 — HEMINGWAY NAME
Field’s account places an earlier attempt to establish the Hemingway Bar name in 1979 with Hemingway family involvement.
18 · 1982 — CLOSED
He said that attempt failed and the bar was closed by 1982.
19 · DO NOT INVENT THE HERITAGE
Field therefore did not invent Hemingway’s Ritz mythology. His task was to make inherited history commercially and emotionally alive again.
20 · THE WRITER
Ritz Paris continues to describe Hemingway as a long-term hotel regular whose relationship with the Ritz began in the 1920s.
21 · GEORGES + BERTIN
The current Ritz history names Georges and Bertin among bartenders with whom Hemingway formed friendships.
22 · THE PETIT BAR
The current location had once been Le Petit Bar, which Ritz describes as an early upscale Paris bar where women could come unaccompanied.
23 · 1994 — REBIRTH
Field’s arrival begins the modern Bar Hemingway era.
24 · SMALL ROOM
The present Ritz describes the bar as just 25 seats.
25 · SMALLNESS AS ADVANTAGE
At that scale, the bartender can know the whole room. Intimacy is operational, not merely decorative.
26 · NO MUSIC
The Ritz still emphasises that there is no music — only ice and conversation.
27 · CONVERSATION IS PROGRAMMING
Removing music gives social interaction more importance and makes the bartender’s judgment unusually visible.
28 · INTRODUCE PEOPLE
Forbes described Field as particularly skilled at introducing guests to one another until the room could become a shared conversation.
29 · OR LEAVE THEM ALONE
The same skill includes recognising when a guest does not want the bartender’s performance.
30 · HOST, SHOWMAN, BACKGROUND
Field described his job in Forbes as host, showman and life of the party — while also knowing when to disappear into the background.
31 · READ THE WORLD
He told Forbes that he read newspapers from several countries and studied subjects ranging from art to finance so he could converse intelligently with guests.
32 · KNOWLEDGE AS SERVICE TOOL
General knowledge becomes part of luxury service when the bartender’s role includes conversation with an international clientele.
33 · NEUTRALITY
Field has also described neutrality as an essential bartender quality: the bar should be socially safe for guests with different views.
34 · TAILOR-MADE COCKTAIL
The current Ritz continues to call tailor-made cocktails a house specialty.
35 · IMPROVISATION
The Ritz’s present language still emphasises creativity, precision and improvisation according to the guest’s wishes.
36 · THE GUEST BEFORE THE RECIPE
This is the central Field principle: the correct cocktail is not necessarily the most technically elaborate one, but the one appropriate to the person and moment.
37 · SERENDIPITY
Ritz Paris identifies Serendipity as one of Bar Hemingway’s most famous cocktails and says it was invented there.
38 · FIELD + SERENDIPITY
Reference works and Field’s own biography identify Serendipity among his defining creations.
39 · PICASSO MARTINI
The Picasso Martini became another widely associated Field signature.
40 · CLEAN DIRTY MARTINI
Field also developed the Clean Dirty Martini during the later Ritz era.
41 · RITZ SIDE CAR
His Ritz Side Car became famous partly through the use of rare pre-phylloxera cognac and its extraordinary price.
42 · PRICE IS NOT THE LEGACY
The expensive cocktail generated publicity, but Field’s deeper significance is service authorship rather than luxury-price spectacle.
43 · LADIES’ ROSE
The current Ritz still notes the ritual of a rose accompanying ladies’ drinks.
44 · RITUAL
Small rituals make a bar recognisable without requiring a large theatrical production.
45 · MEMORABILIA
Field filled the room with Hemingway-related and personal objects.
46 · EVERYTHING HAS A STORY
In his Hemingway Society interview, he said almost everything visible in the room belonged to him, with limited exceptions.
47 · FATHER’S PROPELLER
One example was his father’s aircraft propeller, which Field connected to Hemingway’s interest in the RAF.
48 · CURATOR, NOT SET DECORATOR
The objects mattered because they came with stories the host could tell; the bar became a conversational archive.
49 · HERITAGE YOU CAN TOUCH
This made the Hemingway mythology less like a museum display and more like material for live hospitality.
50 · 2012 — RITZ CLOSES
Ritz Paris closed for a major multi-year renovation.
51 · THE BAR SURVIVES
Field later explained that Bar Hemingway required comparatively little alteration because he had used annual closures to keep wiring and plumbing updated.
52 · 2016 — REOPENING
Bar Hemingway returned with the renovated Ritz in 2016.
53 · SAME BAR
Field emphasised continuity: same counter, wood and essential room identity rather than reinvention for its own sake.
54 · PRESERVATION THROUGH MAINTENANCE
Heritage survives more convincingly when maintenance happens continuously rather than through periodic theatrical restoration.
55 · EXECUTIVE ROLE
Field’s later Ritz role extended beyond one counter into wider responsibility for the hotel’s bars.
56 · DIFFERENT BARS, DIFFERENT VOICES
He described other Ritz bars as having their own bartenders and styles rather than forcing Hemingway’s identity across the entire hotel.
57 · INSTITUTIONAL PLURALISM
A great hotel can contain several bar concepts without turning them into copies.
58 · EDUCATION
Field’s legacy also extends into bartender education.
59 · M.O.F.
He has described helping create a formal bartender category within the Meilleur Ouvrier de France framework.
60 · M.A.F.
His own chronology also records responsibility in Meilleur Apprenti de France bartender training.
61 · PROFESSION, NOT SIDE JOB
The broader objective was to treat bartending as a recognised skilled profession with education, standards and advancement.
62 · TEACH THE NEXT GENERATION
Field also lectured and trained in hospitality-school contexts including César Ritz in Switzerland.
63 · BOOKS
He authored The Cocktails of the Ritz Paris and later Cocktails, A Simple Story.
64 · PRINT EXTENDS THE BAR
As with Harry Craddock, publishing allows bar knowledge to leave the physical hotel.
65 · BUT FIELD IS DIFFERENT FROM CRADDOCK
Craddock’s defining historical act is codifying a broad cocktail canon. Field’s is more intensely host-centred: the room, guest and story determine the drink.
66 · NEARLY THIRTY YEARS
Christie’s 2024 press release describes Field as having served at Bar Hemingway for nearly thirty years.
67 · FORMER CHIEF BARTENDER
The same Christie’s release identifies him as the former chief bartender of Bar Hemingway.
68 · 2024 — COLLECTION SALE
Christie’s offered a selection of Field’s personal Hemingway Bar collection in 2024.
69 · THE OBJECTS LEAVE THE BAR
The sale makes an unusual heritage transition visible: objects that helped form the bar’s modern identity return to the status of personal collection.
70 · THE INSTITUTION CONTINUES
The Ritz continues to operate Bar Hemingway with a new generation of bartenders.
71 · ANNE-SOPHIE PRESTAIL
Current Ritz materials identify Anne-Sophie Prestail as the cocktail virtuoso at Bar Hemingway.
72 · SUCCESSION TEST
The strongest proof of Field’s institutional authorship is whether the bar can remain itself after he leaves.
73 · CURRENT GRAMMAR
The current Ritz description still emphasises 25 seats, unchanged décor, memorabilia, no music, conversation, improvisation and tailor-made cocktails.
74 · THE SYSTEM SURVIVES THE PERSON
Those continuities suggest that personal style became institutional grammar.
75 · WHAT FIELD CHANGED
Colin Peter Field helped turn Bar Hemingway from inherited Ritz mythology into a living modern hospitality institution. He reopened a dormant bar in 1994, used its tiny scale to make conversation and recognition central, created signature drinks including Serendipity, and filled the room with objects whose stories he could animate for guests. He treated general knowledge, discretion and social introductions as bartender tools. He also worked to professionalise bartender education beyond the Ritz. His deepest contribution is stewardship: history is valuable only when a living host can make it matter to the person sitting at the bar tonight.
76 · WHAT THIS MODEL DOES NOT SOLVE
A bar strongly identified with one host faces succession risk. Personal memorabilia can blur institutional and private ownership. Heritage can become nostalgia. Tailor-made service is difficult to scale and depends heavily on individual judgment. A famous bartender can overshadow assistants and the wider hotel team. The model succeeds when personality becomes culture rather than cult.
77 · FIELD AND HARRY CRADDOCK
Both are English-born bartenders whose careers became inseparable from legendary grand-hotel bars. Craddock’s Savoy legacy is compilation and codification; Field’s Ritz legacy is stewardship, improvisation and social hosting. Craddock makes the repertoire portable. Field makes the room personal.
78 · FIELD AND ADA COLEMAN
Coleman demonstrates how one personalised guest request can become a century-long cocktail legacy. Field extends the same principle into an operating philosophy: listen first, then create the drink appropriate to the guest.
79 · FIELD AND FRANK MEIER
Frank Meier represents an earlier Ritz Paris bartender-author whose work helped define the hotel bar before and between wars. Field belongs to the later revival: he inherits the institution after discontinuity and gives the Ritz bar tradition a new contemporary protagonist.
80 · FIELD AND KURT WACHTVEITL
Both represent salaried stewardship so strong that individual personality becomes part of a grand hotel’s identity. Wachtveitl authors through the entire Oriental Bangkok; Field through one tiny bar. Scale differs, but both show that stewardship can become authorship.
81 · LHL CONNECTIONS
LHL-P-173 · Colin Peter Field · Chefs, Restaurateurs, Bartenders & Culinary Authors · active record. Ritz Paris · Place Vendôme — defining hotel institution. Bar Hemingway — defining professional stage · modern era reopened under Field in 1994. Le Petit Bar — predecessor space and historical lineage. Bertin · Georges — earlier Ritz bartenders connected to Hemingway history. Ernest Hemingway — defining literary/hotel mythology inherited by Field. Serendipity — defining Field cocktail associated with Bar Hemingway. Picasso Martini · Clean Dirty Martini · Ritz Side Car — representative Field creations. Ferrandi Paris — formative hotel education. Bartender M.O.F. / M.A.F. initiatives — profession-building legacy. The Cocktails of the Ritz Paris — publication legacy. Anne-Sophie Prestail — current-generation Bar Hemingway bartender in Ritz materials.
82 · TIMELINE
17 May 1961 — Colin Peter Field is born in Rugby, England. 1975 — a school trip to Paris inspires his ambition to become a bartender, according to his own biography. 1981 — arrives in Paris and studies at Ferrandi while building hotel and restaurant experience. 1980s — works across Paris hotels and restaurants and competes in national/international bartending competitions. 1994 — joins Ritz Paris as Head Bartender and reopens Bar Hemingway. 1990s–2000s — Bar Hemingway becomes internationally identified with Field’s hosting and cocktails; Serendipity and other signatures become part of its repertoire. 2000s — publishes Ritz cocktail books and expands education/consulting work. Circa 2009–2010 — participates in formal bartender M.O.F. development and later apprentice training initiatives, according to his own professional chronology. 2012 — Ritz Paris closes for major renovation. 2016 — Ritz and Bar Hemingway reopen; Field returns to the bar. 2023 — end of Field’s Ritz tenure is reported in later coverage. 2024 — Christie’s describes him as former chief bartender and auctions a selection of his personal Bar Hemingway collection. 2026 — Bar Hemingway continues under a new generation while retaining many elements of the operating grammar associated with the Field era.
83 · LHL STORY — READ THE NEWSPAPER BEFORE THE GUEST ARRIVES
The cocktail is ready. But the guest wants to talk about the election. Or a yacht. Or a painting. Or the market. The bartender cannot shake an answer. So read before service. Learn enough to listen intelligently. Luxury service begins before the guest enters the room.LHL-P-173 · Social Intelligence / Long Essay.
84 · A SECOND STORY — DO NOT TURN THE BAR INTO A MUSEUM
The writer is dead. The photographs are old. The stories are famous. It would be easy to preserve everything and kill the room. Instead, pour a new drink. Introduce two strangers. Tell one old story. Create one new one. Heritage survives when tonight becomes part of it.LHL-P-173 · Living Heritage.
85 · LEGACY
Colin Peter Field belongs in the Luxury Hospitality Library because his Bar Hemingway era shows how a salaried bartender can become an institutional author without claiming ownership of the history he inherits. Hemingway, the Ritz, Le Petit Bar, Georges and Bertin all existed before him. Field’s achievement was revival. From 1994 he turned a dormant room into a tiny social institution in which cocktails, conversation, personal objects, literature and guest recognition reinforced one another. Serendipity supplied a durable cocktail signature; his memorabilia supplied a visual archive; his reading and conversation supplied social intelligence; his education work helped move bartending toward recognised professional status. Nearly thirty years later, his departure created the real test of stewardship. The Ritz still describes Bar Hemingway through intimacy, unchanged décor, objects, silence, conversation, improvisation and tailor-made drinks. The strongest legacy of a steward is not that the institution cannot survive without him. It is that after he leaves, people can still recognise what he taught the institution to be.