“Sitting at Katie’s bar is one of life’s great joys,” says fellow bartender Tyler Wang of Audubon Boston, and we heartily concur. The willowy beauty who serves as bar manager of the Hawthorne not only stewards one of the best-regarded craft cocktail teams in the city, in one of its coolest spaces—an unmarked pair of rooms tucked under the Hotel Commonwealth’s lobby—but is herself a witty beacon of hospitality with dazzling technical chops behind the bar.
Katie Emmerson at the Hawthorne
Hotel Commonwealth, 500A Comm. Ave., Boston • (617) 532-9150
thehawthornebar.com
Other Winners
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Bartender
2015 Winner: Ran Duan of The Baldwin Bar at Sichuan Garden II
Seventeen years after the B-Side Lounge birthed the local craft cocktail revival, Boston is blessed with scores of skilled, scholarly, engaging bartenders making serious drinks…...
- 2 Alfred St., Woburn
- (781) 935-8488
- sichuangardenrestaurant.com
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Bartender
2016 Winner: Jason Kilgore of UNI
The new UNI is a fantastic reimaging of Ken Oringer’s flagship restaurant, ditching Clio’s costly French/Japanese fusion for sushi and affordable izakaya snacks like pork-belly buns, skewers, dumplings and ramen while preserving the old Uni’s extravagant imported sashimi...
- 370 Comm. Ave., Boston
- (617) 536-7200
- uni-boston.com
Photo Credit: Melissa Ostrow -
Bartender
2017 Winner: Gwen Hagerty at Bar Mezzana
At Colin and Heather Lynch’s acclaimed coastal Italian restaurant, justly lauded for fabulous seafood and pastas, Ryan Lotz oversees the South End’s best bar program...
- 360 Harrison Ave., Boston
- (617) 530-1770
- barmezzana.com
Photo Credit: Holly Rike -
Bartender
2018 Winner: Amanda Saladino at The Hawthorne
- 500A Commonwealth Ave., Boston
- (617) 532-9150
- thehawthornebar.com
Photo Credit: Emily Hagen
