

Food and Hosting
How To Make London's Best Dirty Martini
05.06.2026
Pull up a stool at Three Sheets and you'll quickly understand why it's lasted a decade. Max Venning opened the Dalston bar in a matter of weeks - keys on a Wednesday, doors open by Friday - and what started as a makeshift cocktail station and a coat of paint has quietly grown into one of the most respected names in London hospitality.
Now with a second site in Soho and a Dirty Martini that's become something close to legendary, Max reflects on what it actually takes to build a bar people keep coming back to, why regulars are everything, and the drink he'd happily order for the rest of his life.


Interview with Max Venning, Three Sheets
Three Sheets started as a small room in Dalston and became one of the most loved bars in London. How did it begin, and did you have any sense of what it might grow into?
We’d always wanted to open a bar, but it all happened really quickly. Someone was close to a deal on the site but it fell through, so when we got into negotiations, the legals were nearly done, and the seller was about to have a baby, so she needed to move quickly. We wrapped it up in about 4 weeks, which is really quick. We got the keys on a Wednesday and just painted the place and put some artwork up and built a makeshift cocktail station and opened on the Friday night. We traded like that for 3 months, then closed for a few weeks and opened as it is now. It took around a year to really get going. I think you always hope you will be open for a long time, but 10 Years is a real milestone and we're happy to have been a place people want to come and have a drink for so long. The wider recognition has been amazing, and has offered us a great opportunity to travel and create connections all over the world.
The name is about letting loose and enjoying yourself - and yet the bar always feels calm and considered. Do those two things feel like a contradiction to you, or are they exactly the same thing?
I like to think, and have certainly participated in, a cool and calm Three Sheets, and a swinging off the rafters Three Sheets. Everything we do is calm and considered; we like to say meticulously simple, but you can also really let your hair down and have a good time.
The best bars make you feel like you stumbled onto something. Is that something you can actually design for, or does it just happen?
I think it's really about service. It doesn't matter if it is a conspicuous bar on a busy high street, or a speakeasy behind a hot dog store; the best bars make you feel like you are part of something, and that's about how the staff make you feel. If the design and product are authentic, then it’s all about how you are treated.


The Martini feels like the drink everyone is talking about right now. Why do you think it keeps pulling people back?
It's just painfully cool, and once you have gotten used to the flavour - really crisp and refreshing. Synonymous with some of the most chic celebs in history, and iconic in its imagery.
Your Dirty Martini has olive oil vodka, koseret tea vodka, Picpoul de Pinet, fleur de sel. Where does a recipe like that actually begin?
We work closely with The Rare Tea Company; Henrietta and Jack are so wonderful with us. We taste 2-3 times a year, and we tasted the Koseret, and it has this amazing stone fruit savouriness. We built the drink out from there, tested it at a lot of pop-ups around the world and tweaked it until it was ready to go on the bar. It’s up there with my favourite drinks we’ve ever made.
What's changed about how people drink since you opened, and what's stayed exactly the same?
People come to drink to socialise mainly, and that has remained constant. Owning a bar is really about creating a space where people want to come to be together. That can be old friends or new, but that's what it is all about. You have to be unique and create something good to get them in the door, but we are here as a place for connection. Trends come and go but generally our guests have grown up with us, so maybe they are drinking a little less and a little better quality.
What does a regular mean to a bar like Three Sheets - and what do your regulars mean to you?
In the first year we had two groups of regulars. One of them created a group on whatsapp and anytime someone in the group went for a drink they came to us and put it in the group to get more people down and this would happen two or three times a week. The other group came in twice a week religiously, and every Saturday. Without these people we wouldn’t have lasted 6 months and we’re still friends with them today. Regulars are the lifeblood of any bar, and they will change over the years as they get older and start having families, but we wouldn’t be here without them.


The menu changes with the seasons - how does a new drink actually find its way onto the list?
We never put deadlines on things, to allow the drink to develop and grow, and just keep testing and tasting. Once we all agree its ready, it will go on in Dalston. If it does well there for a while we sometimes then move it across to Soho.
Opening Soho meant something different - more space, food, a new kind of energy. What did it teach you about what Three Sheets is?
We were pretty intentional about the opening, to grow Three Sheets from a small East London bar to a hospitality company, offering great cocktails, food, wine and service at the heart of everything. It's about bringing the attention to detail we have always had with drinks to a wider audience, and it's great that it’s been received so well, the demographic is so much broader in Soho.
What do you want someone to feel when they leave?
A little happier than when they walked through the door.


Quickfire
The drink that explains Three Sheets in one sip?
Dirty Martini
The bar that made you fall in love with bars?
Socio Rehab, Manchester
Shaken or stirred - is there actually a right answer?
Always Stirred
An ingredient you keep reaching for right now?
Minus 8, forever and always
Best drinking city in the world that isn't London?
New York, New York.
The cocktail you'd drink for the rest of your life if you had to choose just one?
A Vodka Martini, very very cold, dry, with a twist.
What's always in your fridge at home?
Calabrian Chilli
What are you drinking tonight?
A bottle of red, with my Fiancee
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