Hannah Sharman-Cox and Siobhan Payne are two of the friendly faces behind The Pinnacle Guide. We met them when we reached out to see if we could be of any help with this initiative. Within seconds of that initial virtual meeting, it felt as though we were talking with old friends and that feeling continued when we met in real life this July in Mexico City. These two care about the hospitality industry in big ways. They are the kind of people who actually DO the thing (instead of simply talking about it) and we love them for that. They also insisted that they be photographed and interviewed together for this feature – and who are we to deny such a request!
Bartender Atlas: Where were you born?
Siobhan Payne: I was born in South London.
Hanna Sharman-Cox: And I was born just a little down the road in Essex, which is also kind of south of London.
BA: What city do you both work in now?
SP: We both live and work in London, although we do travel an awful lot.
BA: What are your job titles or how would you describe what you do in the hospitality industry?
SP: We have the same job title, it is co-founder of The Pinnacle Guide, co-founder of London Cocktail Week and we also have our own consultancy brand called Hands London which I suppose we’re co-founders of as well.
BA: Where do you go out to eat and drink when you’re not working?
HSC: I have to say we are quite fond of being local. We live in West London, which is wonderful for food and drink. So we live right near Notting Hill. There’s always some fantastic restaurants opening.
SP: We recently had dinner with Dorian in Notting Hill, which is just dreamy. The food, the drink is amazing. David Beckham was there.
HSC: We often eat and drink at my house because it’s very relaxing to not be out so we do tend to do that quite a lot
SP: …and Hannah’s an excellent chef.
HSC: “Restorative socializing” we’ve been calling it recently.
BA: What do you do outside of work? What hobbies have you got?
SP: I’m quite outdoorsy so I like hiking, camping and kayaking.
HSC: Um, I’m not outdoorsy at all and I don’t like kayaking or camping or hiking. I like sitting down quietly, hahaha. Um, no, that’s not true.
SP: We do both keep pretty fit to be honest, just to keep the brains in check. Yoga, Pilates, the gym.
HSC: I go to a dance class every week.
BA: Oh wow, what kind of dance?
HSC: It’s like the dance you used to do as a child. So it would be called jazz dancing, I guess? It’s not social dancing or partner dancing. Although I’m trying to talk someone into doing that with me (points at Siobhan). I used to dance professionally, so I do just about still manage to hop about on one leg.
SP: I’m like a pushy mum. I’m like, “what about your dancing? Tell him about your dancing, Hannah!”
BA: Who’s your favourite fictional bartender?
HSC: Well we get quite cross about fictional bartenders actually because… do we tell them the plan?
SP: I don’t know what you’re going to tell them. We’ve got so many plans!
HSC: I’ve got quite a lot of plans. About how…
SP:… on-camera?
HSC: Yeah.
SP: Oh, yeah.
HSC: Has anybody that’s ever been in a bar shot a movie about being in a bar? It makes us so cross when they’re serving absolutely the wrong drink at the wrong time or opening the bottle of wine at the wrong time so with that in mind we don’t have very many favourite fictional bartenders.
SP: And actually, we’d like to fix it, please. If anybody’s listening from the film industry and would like some help…
HSC: …don’t even get us started on this. There’s a whole business plan waiting to go.
BA: What’s an album that you think everyone should listen to?
SP: I’m going to say Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits.
BA: Really? Honestly, as a London girl I did not expect you to answer with the most New York man.
HSC: That man loved a bar and we love him. We went to see him live – and I think his days of performing live are over now – but we went to see him live just last year in Hyde Park and it was just one of the best afternoons, wasn’t it? Just hit after hit. So I think if you’re a bar lover, the greatest hits of Billy Joel, or just go through the collection, just go through the discography.
BA: What’s the best advice that you’ve ever gotten?
HSC: I’ve got one recently about priorities. So we don’t like saying that we’re too busy because we don’t like the sensationalization of busyness because we think it’s really aspirational to not be very busy. So if we can’t do something, we don’t like to say we’re too busy to do something. So the best piece of advice that we’ve been given is to just be clear about your priorities and you can be too busy for something but it can just not be a priority right now. So for example, “I’m really sorry I can’t come to that menu launch because our priority at the moment is work during the day”. So that was good advice to navigate.
SP: Also, just get on with it and give it a go! I think more is available and more is possible than we sometimes let children believe. So shut up and get on with it and give it a go because the worst thing you can do is learn that not succeeding is not the worst thing.
BA: What is something that we’re excited about? What’s coming up that’s got you excited? Is there another Billy Joel concert?
SP: Well we’ve got London Cocktail Week coming up in October, we’re obviously really excited about that because it’s going to be fantastic again, we’re just planning, starting real planning at the moment. Actually sooner than that we’ve got an event on Monday which is why we have to fly back to from Mexico City so soon and it is an event where all of our bars from London Cocktail Week are coming. The operators are coming for a session. It’s in partnership with Diageo and we’ve got Governmental figures coming such as the Deputy Mayor for Culture for London. We’ve got the Nightlife Task Force who deal with improving nighttime economy for London and 24 hour London. Plus we’re bringing our bartender community together to actually be listened to by the Government which is something we’ve worked really hard on, sort of being the middle man for that.
HSC: And then finally we’re really excited for the Pinnacle Guide announcement in September,
SP: And we’re quite excited to come back to Mexico in January to do another brain-thinking time. We’ve already planned it.
RETURN TO ALL HOSPITALITY GEMS
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Posted August 20th, 2025
