Hannah Gillies has led KOL’s cellar since 2024: quick‑silver pairings that speak European—rather than Californian—to a Mexican menu made solely from British ingredients.
Gillies discovered wine at nineteen in a Glasgow bistro; the spark became vocation while studying WSET in London, fine‑tuning her aromatic reading in Shoreditch’s wine bars. Joining KOL in 2021 as Assistant Head Sommelier, she found the perfect playground in Santiago Lastra’s concept: Mexican at heart yet stocked entirely with British produce—from Scottish venison to Welsh seaweed.
Promoted Head Sommelier in February 2024, she rewrote the list: alongside house‑pour mezcal sit Loire Chenin crus, Friulian skin‑contact whites, biodynamic Mosel Rieslings and English pét‑nats—all chosen for razor‑sharp acidity and low extraction. Her mantra: “wine as geographic storytelling,” honed through conversations with growers who bottle landscapes, not just grapes.
Tasting‑menu pairings dodge the obvious: smoked‑beef taco meets spontaneous‑ferment Georgian Mtsvane; British‑scallop tostada partners volcanic Malvasía from Lanzarote; dessert skips classic PX for an unfortified Quinta do Crasto Touriga Nacional, highlighting Tabascan chocolate’s earthiness. Each glass is framed as an emotional atlas, with an eye on carbon cost: the list favors estates that offset emissions and ship by rail.
Off the floor, Gillies runs in‑house masterclasses on fermentation in wine—from controlled acetification to native‑yeast work—and teams with Lastra to weave kombucha and kefir into the kitchen’s repertoire. “I want the beverage to be an extension of the dish, not its shadow,” she told Glass of Bubbly.
