Inside the Paso Robles bar where a little alchemy makes ‘something extraordinary’

When The Alchemists’ Garden first opened in Paso Robles, tiny plants and ivies perched on the white walls of the new restaurant and bar.

Five years later, their leaves nearly reach the wooden tables, and the place has transformed into a hub for nightlife, creative cocktails and dreamy dishes.

Inside the restaurant and bar, a green neon sign reads, “What you imagine you create” — a testament to the co-owners’ vision of dreams, star signs and turning the “ordinary into the extraordinary.”

How did The Alchemists’ Garden start out?

In the mid-2010s, six bartenders met in SLO County, through working in a variety of hospitality jobs.

“We’re all bartenders at heart … and back in the day, the alchemists were known to turn something ordinary into something extraordinary, and that’s kind of what we wanted to feed back into the community,” co-owner Andrew Brune told The Tribune. “You’re going to come in here and get the best margarita, get the best martini, the best skirt steak you can possibly get.”

Brune co-owns The Alchemists’ Garden with Tony Bennett, Alexandra Pellot, Quin Cody and Norin and Nona Grancel.

The six alchemists were all used to managing other people’s businesses — whether that be restaurants, hotels or bars. But in 2019, it was time for something of their own.

That year, Brune, Bennett, Pellot and Cody began working on what would eventually be The Alchemists’ Garden.

Cody took the plans a year later to Norin Grancel, a former lawyer, for feedback. Their small meeting in January 2020 was when the Grancels joined as the “tiebreaker.”

“It looked like a great idea, but I said, ‘Four partners — you need a fifth partner,’” Norin Grancel told The Tribune. “Because if it’s two and two, you need a tiebreaker. On my way home, I called Nona, and I said, ‘I want to take you someplace to see something.’”

The barren space at 1144 Pine St. was leased to the six partners the next month, and The Alchemists’ Garden had its soft opening July 27.

The business even features a special nod to that moment the plan all came together: The alchemical symbols of how the planets were aligned when they all signed the lease are engraved in copper into its concrete bar top.

“Paso was ready for this kind of experience,” Cody told The Tribune. “We were fortunate enough to have been placed in the right place at the right time to make that happen.”

What’s on the menu at 5-year-old restaurant and bar?

The experience The Alchemists’ Garden brings is dreamy, artistic and locally sourced.

Deviled eggs, bone marrow, pan-seared halibut and skirt steak are just some of the options on the extensive menu. Craft cocktails like the Garden Spear, Nicolas Flamel and the Alchemists Gold are meticulously built.

The favorite dessert by a landslide is the brûléed banana split with peanut butter mousse, the owners said.

The name behind The Alchemists’ Garden comes from the six co-owners’ hospitality experiences — they are each alchemists in their own way. The garden? The botanicals lining the walls and the bar’s lushly landscaped patio.

“The garden, the idea of botanicals and herbs and vegetation, things that the Earth nourishes and provides us to use in our food, in our drink, those are symbolized not only in the idea of conversation, but also physically on your plate, in your glass,” Bennett told The Tribune. “When you get back to those roots, you get fresher profiles, brighter colors, just more intense flavors. That was the core of what we were building.”

They didn’t stop there.

In 2022, the owners opened The Remedy, a 21-and-over lounge nestled inside The Alchemists’ Garden that serves fine spirits and craft cocktails made right in front of the customer.

The dimly lit lounge seats 12 people, with a booklet of 12 cocktails that includes rosemary-infused Tin City Bourbon in its Twigs and Dram and espresso-infused Montaraz Bacanora in the Moscow Snow Storm.

The Remedy was a way to achieve extremely detailed cocktails that weren’t possible to make in the restaurant with busy food service.

“With the volume we were doing, we weren’t able to create the details and provide the experience that we initially dreamed of being able to provide people really unique, astounding, visually beautiful cocktails,” Cody said. “Our cocktails are still astounding and beautiful, but it’s just on a different scale.”

The co-owners also this year created The Cocktail Challenge, with a goal to share knowledge with bartenders from around the world in a four-round competition with different criteria for every round.

Anyone interested in the art of cocktails can enter in the challenge, held at the restaurant’s bar, with a secret grand prize awarded to the winner.

“The idea of inclusion is really important. All of us have competed on different levels at different bar events, and I think we can all agree that sometimes there’s less friendliness and more hostility in the events,” Bennett said. “Trying to really make this fun for people to come and network and meet people and watch what they’re doing, be inspired by it — I think that was important to all of us.”

Round one was held June 9. Now in round two, timing will be everything. On Monday at 5 p.m., participants will have 10 minutes to craft a specialty cocktail using Fernet-Branca or Branca Meta, or both. A tattoo artist will also be on-site offering complimentary Fernet-inspired tattoos on a first-come, first-served basis, according to a news release.

After five years of The Alchemists’ Garden, an anniversary party on July 31 with the co-owners and the community was in order. Balloons, cake, and of course cocktails were served as the business celebrated how far it has come from that first burst of alchemical inspiration.

As for what is next for the owners, they said they’ve got several goals in mind, but nothing they are sharing as yet.

“Since the beginning, we wanted it to be different,” Pellot told The Tribune of the business. “We wanted to, yes, create something, but the wheel is invented. We don’t have to keep going — but we always painted outside the line.”

For more information

The Alchemists’ Garden at 1144 Pine St. in Paso Robles is open on Monday to Wednesday from 5 to 10:30 p.m. and Thursday to Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. and 5 to 10:30 p.m.

For more information about The Alchemists’ Garden, visit its website or call 805-369-2444.

This story was originally published August 15, 2025 at 5:00 AM.