CROSSROADS

hospitality consultancy

Welcome to Crossroads Consulting, a duo driven by a shared passion for modern bartending and hospitality innovation. With over two decades of combined experience across the industry our true focus has always been on pushing the boundaries of what bartending can be.

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Make it Happen

At Crossroads Consulting, we’re committed to pushing the boundaries of modern bartending while preserving the essence of hospitality. Whether you're looking to innovate your menu, improve team dynamics, or optimize operational efficiency, we are here to guide you every step of the way.

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WHO WE ARE

Crossroads Consulting has been founded by Bart Miedeksza and Valentino Girotto - a duo driven by a shared passion for modern bartending and hospitality innovation.

With over two decades of combined experience across the industry, we’ve honed our skills in everything from dive bars to Michelin-starred restaurants, but our true focus has always been on pushing the boundaries of what bartending can be.

Our journey took a significant leap in 2020 when we opened Crossroads Cocktail Bar, our award-winning neighbourhood bar, which began in a cozy underground venue in Camden Town before moving to a larger, vibrant space in Newington Green. Crossroads quickly became a hub for creativity and experimentation, particularly with carbonation techniques. Countless hours of research, trial, and error have made us industry-leading experts in carbonation and modern bartending.

This passion for innovation culminated in the release of our book, "Bubbles: A Guide to Carbonated Cocktails". This comprehensive resource is designed for bartenders and enthusiasts alike, offering practical insights, scientific knowledge, and exclusive cocktail recipes. The book serves as a culmination of years of research and experimentation, aimed at demystifying the art of carbonation and empowering bartenders around the world to elevate their craft.

In September 2024, Crossroads Bar closed its doors, allowing us to fully focus on what we love: researching, sharing knowledge, and educating others in the art of modern bartending. Together, we blend creativity, leadership, and technical know-how to offer a comprehensive consultancy service for bars and restaurants, focusing on everything related to cocktail carbonation to team and management training, menu design and development, and modern flavour extraction techniques.

Both Valentino and Bart bring unique, complementary experiences that fuel the consultancy's offerings. Let us help you explore the frontiers of modern bartending and elevate your craft.

Meet the Team

Bart combines nearly two decades of bartending experience with a background in professional photography.
Throughout his career, Bart has helped with the operations of some of London’s leading bars, before opening Crossroads Bar as his first own project.
With extensive understanding of classic cocktails and deep roots in classic hospitality, Bart applies this knowledge to modern bar’s requirements.
Before committing fully to the hospitality industry, he worked in fashion and advertorial photography. This creative foundation translates into a sharp attention to detail, not only in his cocktail creations but also in branding, design, and social media strategy, which have contributed significantly to Crossroads' identity.
His expertise enhances the visual storytelling of bars and allows the consultancy to offer guidance on building strong, visually compelling brand identities.

Valentino’s deep expertise in bartending was enhanced by his degree in Leadership & Management from Corndel, where he graduated with distinction and became a member of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). This formal education provides him with the tools to lead and empower teams effectively, fostering healthy, supportive work environments. His focus is on building strong, collaborative teams and continuously raising the standards of bar management—an invaluable aspect of the consultancy’s mission to improve operational efficiency and leadership in the hospitality industry.

Services

Drinks

We create innovative cocktail menus that balance creativity with operational practicality, ensuring that your offerings are not only unique but also scalable for high-volume service.
We can develop custom menus for your bar or train your team to independently craft and balance flavors for long-term success.
Whether it’s your new menu or an existing offering, we can help streamlining your operational and beverage costs.
Using our extensive experience in running bar operations, we’re happy to assist with identifying high-margin opportunities and ensure competitive yet profitable pricing, minimising waste and optimising stock levels to cut costs without sacrificing quality. Through evaluation of peak hours, seasonal trends, and promotional impacts we’ll help you enhance your sales strategies.
With years of experience in crafting innovative, creative, and stable ingredients, we offer tailored training to empower you or your team with the skills and knowledge needed to create unique and memorable flavors.
Our service delve into a variety of techniques and equipment for flavor extraction and amplification, helping your team understand the principles behind these processes and how to adapt them to any cocktail style. Whether you're designing for bespoke creations or scaling for high-volume service, we provide expert recommendations to suit your specific needs.

Behind the scenes

As leaders in carbonation techniques, we offer comprehensive training that covers the science behind carbonation, optimal equipment usage, flavour enhancement, and effective delivery methods.
Whether it’s theory or hands-on application, we’ll help you master carbonation to enhance both the flavour profile and the presentation of your cocktails.
We will help you purchase and install the necessary equipment as well as design a carbonation and dispense system that works best for your venue.
Pre-batching isn’t just the future of the industry—it’s the reality of today’s bar scene. Not having a solid system in place is no longer an option.
After years of developing, refining, and testing one of the most efficient and precise systems for preparation and batching behind the bar, we’re ready to share our expertise with your team. Every venue has unique needs, and we tailor ingredient preparation and batching systems specifically to suit your space, team, and operations.
Our training focuses on the core pillars of successful pre-batching: tidiness, cleanliness, precision, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Let us help you streamline your processes and elevate your bar's performance.
Staffing and ensuring its correct management is crucial to seamless operations.
Tailored for the fast-paced bar industry, we’ll help you maximise staff productivity while keeping labour costs under control, ensuring your team works smarter, not harder.
We’ll review current schedules and roles to ensure the right people are in the right positions at the right times.

Public speaking and team training

With diverse backgrounds and approaches, we’ve gained extensive experience in public presentations and workshop hosting.
Drawing from many seminars and workshops at bar shows around the world, we offer valuable insights and practical recommendations to educate professionals in the art of modern bartending.
We tailor each event to specific needs of the client.
We recognize that the hospitality industry often lacks formal training for managers, leaving them to figure out essential leadership tasks on their own.
With our combination of academic knowledge and years of experience in managing teams, we provide leadership and management training that fosters stronger, more cohesive, and efficient teams.
Our training extends beyond the bar.
We focus on cutting-edge bartending techniques such as flavour extraction and carbonation while also providing training in floor service, back-of-house organization, and hospitality.
Our goal is to cover all aspects of the bar environment, ensuring that your team is equipped to meet the highest industry standards.

Our Clients

Bubbles

A Guide to Carbonated Cocktails

Bubbles: A Guide to Carbonated Cocktails is a comprehensive guide designed for bartenders and drinks fans eager to master the craft of force-carbonated cocktails. Written by Bart Miedeksza and Valentino Girotto, and edited by award-winning drinks writer Millie Milliken, Bubbles: A Guide to Carbonated Cocktails brings the duo’s years of research and practical knowledge into sharp focus, with the aim of equipping bartenders all around the world with all the knowledge they need to perfect this technique and implement it in their bars.

Across 300+ pages, the book covers an extensive range of topics in chapters such as Pressure, Time and Space, Sugars, Alcohol Content, Foaming Tips, Protein, Glass Impact and Bubbles Shape, to name a few. There are also graphs and examples of experiments and trials for readers to reference, as well as a glossary of terms for more scientific terminology and an extensive reading list for further research. The book includes exclusive photography and cocktail recipes from the Crossroads team.

Bubbles: A Guide to Carbonated Cocktails is a journal of Bart and Valentino’s many hours of research on the subject of carbonation. It’s their way of helping the industry learn as much as possible and improve its knowledge on the topic that has never before been covered to this extent in a single book.

Gatekeeping knowledge won’t help bartenders progress - this is their gift to the community.