Lovis Bar Berlin: Discover the Possibilities!
© Wilmina
Bar ohne Namen
Entschlossen verweigert sich Savage, der Bar einen Namen zu geben. Stattdessen sind drei klassische Design-Symbole das Logo der Trinkstätte in Dalston: ein gelbes Quadrat, ein rotes Viereck, ein blauer Kreis. Am meisten wurmt den sympathischen Franzosen dabei, dass es kein Gelbes-Dreieck-Emoji gibt. Das erschwert auf komische Weise die Kommunikation. Der Instagram Account lautet: a_bar_with_shapes-for_a_name und anderenorts tauchen die Begriffe ‘Savage Bar’ oder eben ‚Bauhaus Bar‘ auf.
Für den BCB bringt Savage nun sein Barkonzept mit und mixt für uns mit Unterstützung von Russian Standard Vodka an der perfekten Bar dazu.
One split-second glance at the back wall at Lovis Bar is probably all it takes for bar professionals to realise something different is going on here, something exciting. Because instead of colourful bottles of various brands, completely identical pharmacy bottles are lined up here, just the liquids in them shine through the striking brown glass in slightly different hues. Our author Jan-Peter Wulf has been enlightened and inspired.
Prison turned hotel
Opened in early 2023, the Lovis Bar is located in a quiet backyard off the otherwise loud and bustling Kantstraße in Berlin-Charlottenburg. It is quite a unique backyard: because the surrounding building once housing a women’s prison has now been lavishly remodelled into a hotel. Going by the name “Wilmina” the hotel has 44 rooms (two prison cells combined per room). With its sauna, pool and fitness area it offers its guests significantly more convenience than the “previous operation” here. Both bar and restaurant are called “Lovis” and are attached to the hotel but they are run – like modern hotel bars and restaurants ever more often – with independent concepts. They want to address hotel guests as well as external customers. They are connected with each other via a chic lounge – with greenery arranged behind the fully glazed front.
Bar menu based on a coordinates system
Back to the counter where bar chef Nils Lutterbach (previously of Galander Kreuzberg, Berlin) works with his currently small team of two. But what are the brown bottles all about? We are handed the menu. Rather than simply listing the drinks it features a coordinates system where the X-axis goes from light to strong, while the Y-axis ranges from sweet to dry. Twelve drinks are assigned to these parameters – meaning the lightest and sweetest feature top left and the strongest and driest bottom right. You won’t find any names – just numbers in consecutive order following the house recipes. Spirit types? Brand names? Not a mention either!
© Jan-Peter Wulf
Prompt customers to try new things
The reason why: only the aromas should be centre stage rather than the “call brand”, i.e. guests asking for drinks of a particular brand or ordering what they always order because it’s their – supposed – favourite drink. All bartenders know this phenomenon: many guests think they know exactly what they like and what not. But is this really so? Or to put it differently: how do you nudge guests to accept something new? At Lovis Bar people have obviously put a lot of thought into this. Actually, Lutterbach tells us, he had been thinking about this for years when he was still working as a bartender in Hanover and developing the first ideas for the menu now before us. Drink Number 42, for instance, is “called” pear, liquorice, Palo Santo. No. 35 lists medlar, herbs and tartness. The strongest and driest in the current range, No. 43, comprises umami, minerals and currant. Exciting!
Invitation, no dogma
Incidentally, no price interferes with the choice either – each drink costs the same. It is not hard to imagine sophisticated mixed costing lies behind this. Nor that that the “connoisseurs” specifically coming to the Lovis love to play this beautiful game – discovering aromas, tasting components. But what about “normal punters”? Especially in a hotel bar (which is what the Lovis is in organisational terms) often following the principle of “no experiments”? Lutterbach explains: first of all, the whole system is not a dogma. Those who want “their” drinks will get them served. The menu, he explains, should be seen more as an invitation – to taste, unbiased by labels, visibility and supposedly favourite drinks.
Discover what you like
Of course, some clues are needed otherwise things could really go wrong. If your guests like gin (drinks), the bar manager explains, you can get them hooked by asking something like: What exactly do you like about gin? The citrus flavour? Or rather the herbal, spicy tones? In this way bartenders could guide their guests through the coordinates system. One other “assistant” also comes into play here, in the form of a micro drink, served in a little bowl. It is not a drink on the menu but an orientation guide – in our case it consists of coffee, banana schnaps, whey and lime. Lutterbach points to the left top quadrant of the system between the cocktails located there. This is where the “reference drink” is situated.
Does this direction appeal to us? Or should we “head” further north, south, east, or west? We prefer it a little stronger and drier and opt for number 19, position south south-east: Rowanberry, spruce, lemon. A drink with a strong character – spruce shoots into your nose, discreet citrus with a fine-bitter berry base. Very harmonious but also highly intensive. A matter of taste, after all!
© Jan-Peter Wulf
Product quality as a factor of success
“Of course, this comes with a certain degree of risk,” explains the bar chief adding: “If someone really doesn't like the drink they’ve chosen, they are offered something else without any quibbling or surcharge, needless to say”. However, this hardly ever happens, as he knows – the step-by-step principle works very well with all guests, be they hotel or restaurant guests or locals stopping off for a drink or two. “People discover something new through our menu.” The key to success? Consistently high product quality. Spirits are sourced almost exclusively from small craft distilleries predominantly from Germany and/or the surrounding regions.
Mutual inspiration
This approach also links the restaurant with the bar: just like chef Sophia Rudolph (previously working at Panama) who creates her dishes with high-quality, often seasonal, regional ingredients giving them purist names by just listing the ingredients, the bar counter is likewise handled with a focus on the ingredients and their aromas. At the “Panama” she already closely cooperated with the attached “Tiger Bar”; Sophia Rudolph, who highly appreciates this kind of exchange explains: “We inspire the bar with the ingredients we use at our kitchen, and we can also be inspired by mix drinks, thereby getting to know products also of interest to our cuisine.”
To accompany the current dessert “Cherry, Sakura, Marzipan” a drink is served based on the cherry tea also forming part of the dish. Four selected cocktails are provided by the bar to the restaurant – prepared in part to blend in with the menu. From there such bar snacks as sourdough bread and whipped butter, a cheese platter or choice of cold cuts are duly sent back. In future, the bar food offering will be expanded even further.
© Jan-Peter Wulf
The aim: to be one of Berlin’s best bars
According to Lutterbach, he and his team enjoy their work best when – and this is especially the case on weekends – the different groups of guests mingle: restaurant diners coming for an aperitif (the bar opens half an hour earlier) or for after-dinner drinks, hotel guests returning from the city late at night and “locals” joining them in the meantime. Hotel bar, restaurant bar, bar-bar? Lutterbach: “We are a little bit of everything. Though, without being just arbitrary – on the contrary – we are very individual. And with the self-declared goal of being perceived as one of the top bars in the city.
Lovis Bar & Restaurant
Kantstraße 79, 10627 Berlin
