GUEST SHIFT: PIA BAZZANI The Maker Hotel
Pia Bazzoni, F+B Director at The Maker Hotel in Hudson, talks culinary cocktails, work-life balance + cocktails inspired by The Maker’s perfumes.
Interview: Susie Davidson Powell
Photos: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing
Location: The Maker Lounge, Hudson, N.Y.
Tastemaker: Pia Bazzani, F+B Director | IG: @piagiannina
Where: The Maker Hotel | IG: @themakerhotel
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Current city: Saugerties, N.Y.
Personal style: My style is classic—nothing too trendy, jeans, t-shirt, comfortable clothes
Listening to: Mainly listening to a rotation of podcasts at the moment
Favorite spirit/non-alc: Fundy Gin
Favorite classic cocktail/non-alc drink: Vodka martini with a twist & olives or Gin 50/50 Gibson
Coffee or tea and what’s your order: Flat white with a touch of honey
Biggest industry influence/inspiration: Natasha David for cocktails, Victoria James for wine
Drinks industry trend that should end: Smoked cocktails
“Welcome to The Dishing’s Quick Serve interviews where we talk matters of taste with tastemakers in the hospitality industry and trailblazers at the intersection of food, culture and art. Today we’re talking with Pia Bazzani, Food + Beverage Manager of The Maker Hotel, about…. (TO COMPLETE AFTER INTERVIEW IS COMPLETE.).
Hey, Pia. Thanks for talking to The Dishing! Your father was a chef, classically-trained in French cuisine, your mother was a pastry chef and you literally grew up in the hospitality industry. What are some of your earliest memories of home cooking or dining?
I honestly don't remember a time when I wasn't in a restaurant. My parents owned a little farm-to-table restaurant called Rudy's in Big Indian. Once they had me, we moved back to the city and my father continued working in restaurants. One summer we lived on Fire Island while he managed a restaurant there, and it felt like our entire extended family rotated through the house at some point. I was always around it. I remember falling asleep in booths while my parents finished service and closed down for the night.
What's funny is that while my father was cooking very classic French food professionally, at home everything felt incredibly Italian. Big family dinners, way too much food, everyone talking over each other. The loudest person in the room usually won the conversation, which was almost always my grandfather. Food was at the center of everything.
My father also had an incredible mentor who happened to be his next-door neighbor in Big Indian, the last protégé of Escoffier. Looking back, it's kind of wild that this old-school French culinary lineage was just casually living next door. At the time, it just felt normal.
By the nineties, your father had moved to NYC working at Windows on the World + Le Bar Bat so you spent part of your childhood hanging out in these places. It must have been so different to growing up in Portland…
It felt incredibly glamorous to me at the time. The scene in the New York restaurant world at that time felt larger than life. There were chefs, artists, musicians, celebrities, all crossing paths in restaurants. I was exposed to a lot of that at a very early age. I somehow ended up dancing on the bar with a famous actress at the time when I was barely 12. Looking back, it really was a different era. Restaurants felt like cultural hubs. People weren't just going out to eat, they were going out to see and be seen. As a kid it felt magical, almost like a different life.
I know you got your industry start working in hotel restaurants in Portland during college summers, but cocktails and bartending has remained a through line of your career, even as you moved into management positions. What is it about cocktails that has held your interest for so long?
I think cocktails sit in this sweet spot between creativity and hospitality. I loved learning the classics, spirits, techniques, all the nitty gritty, the reasons why. But what kept me interested wasn't necessarily the drinks themselves, it was the interaction. As a bartender you get to connect with people in a way that's unique. Someone sits down within a few minutes you're talking about where they're from, what they're celebrating, what kind of day they've had. You're helping shape someone's experience in real time.
I don't bartend nearly as much as I used to, but I still miss that connection. Designing cocktail menus scratches the creative itch, but there's something special about handing someone a drink and watching their face light up after the first sip.
You’ve stepped in and out of bartending throughout your career from fine dining to cocktail bars and from Portland to Houston to NYC and ultimately to the well known Nick & Toni’s in East Hampton. Were you more torn between pursuing the management side of dining hospitality or the creativity you found in bars?
Honestly, both. I worked in cocktail bars without restaurants for a while, and although I loved the creativity, I realized I needed more structure and a deeper sense of hospitality around it. I’ve always been drawn to restaurants and hotels because they create a full experience. The drink is just one part of a much larger feeling. That’s ultimately what pulled me further into food and beverage leadership.
At the same time, I’ve never lost the creative side. At Nick & Toni’s especially, there was so much collaboration between the kitchen and bar. We were using garden botanicals, preserving fruit, making shrubs, thinking seasonally. I loved that overlap between culinary technique and cocktail development. It made the bar program feel alive and connected in a way I had not seen before. It’s where I started thinking about cocktails differently, more holistically.
You joined The Maker in 2021 as Head Bartender, but quickly stepped into the role of F+B Manager. Even so, you still craft all of the Maker’s seasonal drink menus. Where do you get your inspiration?
Everywhere, honestly. The kitchen is a huge source of inspiration for me. Conversations with chefs, ingredients we’re excited about cross-utilizing, seasonality, trying something new. Travel always inspires me; I come home with my mind racing. I’m constantly taking mental notes.
How would you describe the bar program at The Maker Hotel and, separately, The Maker Lounge?
They're really two different experiences. The Lounge feels more dramatic and transportive. People are sinking into the couches, settling in for the evening, celebrating something, or just looking to disappear for a couple of hours. The cocktails there tend to be a little more layered and playful. That's where we have fun with unusual ingredients, unexpected flavor combinations, and drinks that spark conversation.
Serre has a different energy. Guests lean more toward martinis, aperitifs, and cocktails that work alongside the food rather than stealing the show. They're often looking for something that opens the palate and complements the meal.
It wasn't always this way. Originally the programs were much more similar, but over time they naturally evolved. The spaces feel different, and we realized guests wanted different things depending on where they were sitting.
What is the connection behind the cocktails + The Maker hotel fragrances?
The Maker already had this beautiful fragrance collection inspired by different archetypes and moods. Lev had challenged me to think about whether those fragrances could somehow translate into cocktails without being gimmicky. I was more interested in the emotion and transportive feeling that aromas tie in to memory. A fragrance and a cocktail can bring you right back to a specific memory or place.
So instead of trying to recreate perfumes literally, we started thinking about atmosphere. What does this scent feel like or take me. We built drinks around those ideas. It became much more sensorial than I originally thought.
What cocktail are you most proud of to date?
Probably the fragrance cocktail program because it pushed me creatively in a completely different way. It forced me to think beyond balance and flavor into emotion & memory.
What’s something you haven’t yet made yet but you’d love to figure out?
I’m endlessly interested in texture and layers. I think there’s still so much unexplored territory there. I love cocktails that evolve while you’re drinking them like our Naked martini. It creates a journey people aren’t expecting and is unique to each guest depending on how slow or fast you tend to enjoy your cocktails.
We always ask about industry people’s experience through the pandemic. Where were you working and how did it change things for you?
At the time, I was running Crown in Kingston, an upscale cocktail bar. Like everyone in the industry, we went from this incredibly exciting momentum to shutting everything down in an instant. At the same time, my daughter was born during lockdown, so personally and professionally everything shifted for me. It completely changed my relationship to work-life balance.
I think the pandemic forced a lot of people in this industry to reevaluate sustainability be it emotionally, financially, or physically. It made me much more intentional about leadership and the type of environments I wanted to be in moving forward.
How do you manage a work/life balance?
Honestly, I’m still figuring it out. Hospitality can consume your entire life if you let it.
What do you do to relax?
For me, slowing down usually means cooking at home, gardening, spending time with my daughter, redecorating my home—or at least planning future projects, traveling when possible. I also genuinely love food & dining out, experiencing other hospitality spaces. My family always jokes that I am constantly talking about my next meal even though I may be currently eating!
We still see the impact of the pandemic on restaurants and bars, whether less foot traffic or the decline in drinking along with rising interest in non-alc spirits, although I suspect it may be a little different for a hotel like The Maker with many different components. What do you think has changed most and what do you see as the future of bars?
People are drinking more intentionally now. Even guests who still drink alcohol are often drinking less overall, expectations are higher when they do.
The non-alcoholic movement is evolving dramatically. They’re no longer an afterthought, we aren’t simply adding a syrup to soda, which is very cool. The future feels less about excess and more about thoughtful creations.
What was the last memorable thing you ate or drank?
Recently I was visiting family in Portland and had an incredible sushi dinner with my sister and niece. We sat at the counter, ordered all the specials. There was a piece of fatty yellowtail that absolutely melted in your mouth. Honestly, I could have eaten that over and over and been perfectly happy.
Let’s focus on local tastes. Where are 3 of your favorite spots for breakfast, lunch or dinner in the Hudson Valley or Capital Region?
I love Silvia’s in Woodstock for dinner, I have never had a bad experience there. It’s my go to spot when I want a nice night out.
There’s a little coffee shop near my house, Olsen & Company. They make the best toasts with either farmer’s cheese or avocado.
I’m also a big fan of Mirador in Kingston: Salted fish, martinis kissed with sherry, and still Palomino wine, yes please!
Imagine an ideal day or night out. If you could go anywhere with no limits on costs or reservations, where would you go and how would your day or night unfold?
Good question! If I could go anywhere, I would probably choose somewhere coastal. Endless bottles of wine, oysters, lobsters, good company, watching the sunset. Might sound clichéd though my happiest memories are at the coast. Some of the sunsets in Montauk were life changing.
Thanks so much for sharing so much of your industry backstory with us, Pia!