Best Bartender

Andrés Damerval went to Buenos Aires to study music production and ended up finding his true calling behind the bar. He sums it up best himself: “I went to learn how to mix music and ended up mixing drinks.”

He started out in a nightclub and then moved on to TGI Fridays in Recoleta, where he learned something less glamorous but fundamental: the importance of service, process and consistency. While working, he built up a library of cocktail books and studied on his own. He trained at CAVE, the Argentine Center for Wines and Spirits, worked at Anasagasti Speakeasy and, finally, Casa Cavia, perhaps the experience that most clearly shaped the way he would later conceive a bar of his own. There, he understood that a cocktail does not have to stop at tasting good. It can reach the person drinking it on another level: tell a story, inspire, become part of a larger experience.

In 2020, he returned to Ecuador and the following year founded Nicanor Casa de Bebidas in Guayaquil. He did not choose the easiest moment: pandemic, blackouts, insecurity, restrictions and an economy that has forced many businesses to constantly readjust.

Keeping Nicanor open and helping it grow has required as much business sense as creativity. Even a setback at Puná, a project on the Malecón 2000 that closed before its first anniversary, became an important lesson: being a great bartender does not automatically mean knowing how to build a business, and even the best instincts need analysis and structure.

Perhaps that is why his idea of creativity is never detached from the practical realities of running a bar. A cocktail can begin with something concrete, like an ingredient, or something abstract, like a story or cultural reference, but other questions quickly follow: Does it work within the menu? Can it be executed with excellence every night? Does it make sense for the person sitting across from you? For Damerval, hospitality means knowing how to read the moment and understanding how each drink contributes to the dynamic of the bar. It is just as important to know when to talk, when to recommend and when to let someone simply enjoy their drink.

With Nicanor now part of 50 Best Discovery and a second location underway on Vía a la Costa, Damerval is looking further ahead. He does not seem interested simply in making better cocktails or opening more bars. His ambition is broader: to help Ecuadorian drinking culture find a place of its own in the world, connecting ingredients, spirits, traditions, gastronomy and hospitality, while creating projects that are both commercially sound and meaningful to the city, the country and the industry.

Creativity, craft, hospitality and management: an all-around vision of what a bartender can be, and what makes Andrés Damerval our standout figure behind the bar this year.