Q&A: Adam Fournier of Spago Beverly Hills

When Los Angeles bartender Adam Fournier was spotlighted as an Imbibe 75 Person to Watch in 2022, he was helping to change how people viewed the spirit-free drinks category by creating provocative and unique NA recipes. These days, the NoMad LA alum has been traveling and judging Diageo’s World Class competitions, which he won in 2021. But most notable is his new gig as Spago Beverly Hills’ first-ever bar director. Chef Wolfgang Puck’s 41-year-old flagship restaurant had long focused on its award-winning wine program with an executive chef behind the cocktail program. But that changed recently. We caught up with Fournier to learn about the new role and what his plans are for the restaurant. This interview has been edited and condensed for space.

Imbibe 75: How did you land this newly created position at Spago?

Adam Fournier: Our GM was having a conversation with Chef Wolfgang who said, “Why don’t we have a top 50 bar? Why aren’t we considered to be one of the best bars in the same way we’re one of the best kitchens?” And our GM, in a very blunt moment of honesty, said, “Because you don’t have someone of that caliber running your bar.” Wolfgang sat back and thought about it for a minute and said, “Okay, let’s find that person.”

I got contacted through a recruiting agency they were working with. To be completely honest, I took the interview because it was Spago, not because I thought it was going to be a very exciting job. The reputation for the place was that it was run by a somm, cocktails didn’t really change all that much. And I wasn’t interested in running someone else’s program. But you take the interview with Spago and you go.

[I] was so impressed with the scope of what the team there wanted to accomplish, and still does, that it became a very easy fit.

I went in with lower expectations than what was being offered and was so impressed with the scope of what the team there wanted to accomplish, and still does, that it became a very easy fit. It’s one of those things where you go in hoping this is something that’ll work and then you hear that the visions aligned so closely of how much you want to invest and how much we want to put towards this. Not just new cocktails, but training staff and investing in completely remodeling the bar.

When you were interviewing for the job, you had to do a cocktail presentation for Wolfgang. What was that like?

I got a 36-hour turnaround notice to be able to present five to seven cocktails, ideally three of them tableside, to Chef Wolfgang. Thank god I’ve been a competitor for so long because not only was that a normal thing I’m used to doing for competition, all of the things were already in the house.

I did a green tea yuzu highball because I thought it was a great example of the fusion style of Asian flavors versus modern techniques that Wolfgang uses a lot. I knew that Wolfgang was, at the time, huge into mezcal Negronis. So I did a riff on a mezcal Negroni with a little bit of cold brew and smoke tableside with a smoking box for him to get that kind of experience going along. I presented a martini-style cocktail with a brioche-infused sherry and a caviar-infused vodka. It was a good example of the kind of things we could do and talked about for tableside service. I made him a couple of nonalcoholic drinks, including the Sakura Rose [a homemade spirit-free wine alternative]. 

What did he think of that one? 

He liked it. He’s very interested in techniques and flavors and loves the presentation of how it adds to the guest experience. He can see people getting excited about it. And that’s the thing for him. He wants people to have a great time. As he likes to say it’s not fine dining, it’s fun dining. But it is definitely a little bit of both.

What motivated him to make these changes now after 40 years?

He said to me that as chefs they failed with the bar because for so many years, they’d always thought of the bar as the holding space for the restaurant. The main event is the food and the dining experience. They realize now that there can be a whole other experience that the bar can build into—it gives another opportunity to experience the place. And that’s a vision that I very much align with and that we can build together. But also the bar, while feeding into and supporting everything that happens in the dining room and the kitchen, should be its own unique experience.

The full menu will always be available at the bar. That’s just the Spago way. But there will be a more approachable, user-friendly bar menu of snacks and appetizers that will be bar-specific and bar-focused. We’re also working on tableside cocktails for the dining room to bring a little bit of that bar experience to them.

What’s the difference between the previous menu and what you’re doing now? 

They definitely ran sweeter and bigger in volume. They were probably constructed in the same way I imagine a chef like that would construct a meal. How is this complete on its own? How is this satisfying on its own and just lives as its own experience versus “I’m gonna have two or three drinks as we move around.”

The drinks that we’re going for right now are very much designed to pair with the dining room experience. They play a little bit with the element of time and layers. How does that drink evolve from when you order your appetizer into your mid-course? What does it look like as you go from your pastas into your entrees—are there layers or is the ice melting? But they also need to stand alone at the bar as an individual experience. The flavor profile runs drier than they used to because that’s my palate.

My target audience isn’t necessarily the people who have been coming for 20, 30 years … My target audience is their kids.

One of the big things I really try to focus on with this program is being cognizant and respectful of the fact that this is a 41-year-old institution. I want to integrate it so seamlessly that it feels to people like it’s always been there. My target audience isn’t necessarily the people who have been coming for 20, 30 years. My hope for them is that they’re not angry that their Martini is in another glass. They think it tastes just as good as it has for the past 20 or 30 years, no matter how much the recipe might have changed. My target audience is their kids, the people who are going to become the regulars for the next 20 years, or that person who’s coming in to experience the bar for the first time.

Wolfgang Puck wants to win the big awards. How do you plan for that?

You plan for that by doing the absolute best work that you can, by being pure hospitality. Wolfgang has that in spades and we all try to take our cue from him. Spago Beverly Hills is his original restaurant. It is still his baby. Every single day that he is in town, he is in that restaurant touching tables, checking on the quality of food, making sure service is up to our expectations. In that respect, it’s building the bar, the cocktails, and the education of the staff to the level that they can speak about the bar the same way they can speak about the food.

And then after that, it’s word of mouth—people coming in, getting people into seats, and spreading that word around. It’s definitely not an overnight task or win. It is something that you build toward over time. The awards are a nice goal because they give you something to work towards. But they’re not the day-to-day. The way you get there is by being the best possible version of the bar, of the restaurant, of hospitality that you can possibly be. And after that, hopefully, that kind of recognition starts to come in.