Starbucks Reserve

Coffee and cocktails, shot close

For Starbucks Reserve in Valletta, Malta, I photographed the bar’s signature beverage lineup — cold brews, cloud macchiatos, coffee cocktails. Reserve sits apart from a regular Starbucks by design, closer to a specialty coffee bar than a quick-service counter, and the drinks needed to read that way: layered, textured, and considered enough to hold up as a hero shot on their own.

I shot the drinks close, where the layering does the work, then pulled back to let the space itself into the frame. The bar occupies a historic Maltese building in Valletta, and the fit-out leans into that: warm wood, a ribbed panel wall lit in amber, brass catching the light in the background. The concept borrows from Starbucks’ Milan Roastery and its Italian aperitivo tradition, and that carries through into the cocktail shots too, so the whole set reads as one bar rather than two menus stitched together.