Williams & Graham Adds Acclaimed Bartender Annemarie Sagoi to its Staff

Annemarie Sagoi, acclaimed Chicago bartender, will join Williams & Graham as general manager starting in July, while veteran chef Matt Selby will take the reins of upcoming LoHi restaurant Bremen’s Wine and Tap.

Sean Kenyon, barman and owner of Williams & Graham and the Occidental, shared the news of bringing on Sagoi with excitement. “Annemarie has been a peer and someone I have looked up to in the industry for years,” he said. “While people in our world often get hung up on the science of cocktails, Annemarie always remembers that we are serving people and we are there to make them happy. That is what makes her a great fit for our team,” he added.

Sagoi has worked internationally as a bar manager and owner, educator, brand ambassador, event coordinator, and bar consultant from the US to Southeast Asia, where she currently resides. She managed the beverage program at The Dawson, which opened in October 2013 in Chicago, and went on to manage at The Drifter. She has won numerous cocktail and has been given a nods for her industry innovation in Food & Wine, The Chicago Sun Times, Bon Appetit, and others. When she moves to Denver, she will take on the role of general manager and will also be found behind the bar.

One block away from Williams & Graham, the upcoming bar and restaurant Bremen Wine & Tap added longtime Denver chef Matt Selby to its team. “In developing the vision and concept of Bremen’s, I only had one chef in mind and that was Matty,” managing partner Dina Castillo said. Selby, who spent the bulk of his career at Vesta, met Castillo through mutual friends back in the early 2000s. The two kept in touch as their career paths continued to cross in Denver. The chef left the Punch Bowl Social team recently.

Bremen’s also added AJ Prasaguet, formerly food and beverage director at the Magnolia Hotel, as general manager. The business is set to open the late May, early June.