India’s first trans bartender wants to make the country’s nightlife more inclusive

Transman Fay Barretto is smashing stereotypes in an otherwise male-dominated bar industry

I was first introduced to trans male Fay Barretto by my Irish colleague Sinead McManus, one of Goa’s most prominent PR professionals, at a luxury property opening in the sunshine state. “You’re both members of the LGBT community, you will hit it off,” she trilled chirpily. Barretto is quite a ladykiller, with a bevy of heterosexual women and lipstick lesbians dangling off each arm. “He could audition to be the next James Bond,” I thought to myself.

Cocktails are so gay!

Since India’s first Covid-19-induced lockdown two years ago, Barretto has been in demand on the bartending circuit, with watering holes such as Whisky Samba in Gurugram, New Delhi’s Kimono Club, Coromandel Cafe in Pondicherry, Mahé in Goa, Social in Mumbai and Yazu’s addresses in both Mumbai and Goa in his kitty. I sipped some of the cocktails he had blended later that night—a Gold Bellini; The Matinee with pickled mango and ginger martini; and a Cucumber Gimlet. The cocktail menu was superlative, the ingredients fresh and the garnishes were so extra! If I look through the straight-male gaze, cocktails have always been slightly gay, but Barretto’s cocktails are so camp!

The revolutionary bartender’s work ethic is impeccable. He jiggles a cocktail shaker at the speed of light, mixes a cocktail in under two minutes and makes sure they are always served at the right temperature. “It’s common for LGBT folx to face discrimination at work, but rather than demand special treatment, I’ve always kept my head low, worked doubly hard and let my mixology flex speak for itself,” he says. The transman’s alpha vibe had attracted a fair bit of homophobia from some top male bartenders years ago, but he won’t name them. Barretto has made a name for himself in the Indian bartending circuit and in an age of diversity, some of these haters now masquerade as LGBT allies.

Barretto didn’t identify as female, despite his biology for as long as he remembers, and the gender-markers made it obvious to the world that this is a tomboy. Attending a famous all-girls college in South Mumbai (which, again, he won’t name, because it is infamous for attracting latent lesbians), Barretto had many women swoon over him, makinghim really contemplate his gender identity. After college, he honed his bartending skills, working at Mumbai’s Woodside Inn, followed by stints at Burger Factory and Mahé in Goa. When the first nationwide lockdown was announced in March 2020, restaurants and bars across India were closed indefinitely. This made him think about working independently.

Fay bar, gay bar

Daria Samoylova, Barretto’s Russian neighbour in Morjim, who is ironically a sober Buddhist, and actress Rosemary Fernandes of MTV Splitsvilla fame (both of whom moonlight in Barretto’s firm as bartenders) suggested that Barretto open a luxury bartender agency serving the LGBT community exclusively. “I wanted to cater to women as well, and make bar-hopping a safe space for both females and queer folx,” Barretto says. “I was aiming for something more inclusive and not heterophobic,” he laughs. He christened his new venture Mr. Bartender & The Crew.

While we do have an active gay nightlife in India, replete with high-octance performances by drag queens and go-go boys, Barretto does mention that we don’t have LGBT bar staff or servers, nor do we have an exclusive gay bar like any post-Pride country would. “We have LGBT events for sure, but we need more brick-and-mortar gay establishments and queer professionals running them for the community,” he shares, pointing out a very gaping hole in the nascent industry. Along with Mumbai-based flairtender Ami Shroff, Barretto has auctioned a cocktail menu named ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to an investor in Goa, so you could anticipate India to get its first gay bar by the end of this year.

Barretto undertakes international pub crawls more for his culinary research rather than for leisure, the workaholic says. Iconic establishments like Dante in New York; Beaufort Bar at The Savoy in London; The Clumsies in Athens; Gabbar Bistro & Bar, Employees Only and Atlas Bar in Singapore, are all cocktail bars that have left an impression on him. “I can’t leave out the Parisian lesbian bar La Champmeslé that opened in the seventies, and Silver Future, a gay bar in Berlin from the list,” Barretto says.

Raising the bar

Barretto’s sense of social justice is strong: apart from a team comprising a gay man, four lesbians, two transpersons and a few cis-het women, he has also trained two women from the slums and inducted them into the team. Mr. Bartender & The Crew has a training academy that hosts training batches each month. Upon graduation, the trainees are placed at restaurants and bars. “I also have this idea to host mixology sessions at old-age homes, and tie up with NGOs that combat human-trafficking. I hope they take off,” the think-tank reveals.

Barretto does all of that while keeping up with a very hectic roster as a travelling barman. He is setting up bars for freshly-minted spaces like The Cachar Club in Silchar, F House in Hyderabad and a women-led bar in Kolkata that is yet to be named. Does such a frenetic travel calendar leave the man any time to date? I hear a long sigh in response. “I have been single for a long time, nearly six years now. These modern adaptations of love like the hook-up culture and polyamory leave me very confused. So I just let it be and focus on my craft,” he signs off.

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