Pigalle

Review

Mousetrap, sweet as sugar

Bill Ramsey. Are you old if you can sing along to these hits by the German-American ex-GI? Mimi never goes to bed without a thriller? Wumba-Tumba chocolate ice cream seller? Souvenirs Souvenirs? Obviously.
Never mind. One of Ramsey's greatest hits sang about Place Pigalle in Paris and portrayed the red light district there as a haven of cheerful internationality. Even then, prostitution was more a matter of misery, display and exploitation of young women by old men, but hey, it was the 60s.
This feeling of cheerful light-heartedness, dressed up with a small dose of wickedness and adventure, has apparently somehow become ingrained in the collective consciousness and also led the people from Ramasuri - a number of other restaurateurs and entrepreneurs around Gabriel Alaev, who run the Pizza Randale, Zazatam, Café Drechsler, Tewa and Weinschenke restaurants in a network - to name their latest establishment as such. They chose an old espresso on the corner of Praterstraße/Große Mohrengasse, which had always been home to various Tschocherln over the decades. And after a nightclub at the other end of Mohrengasse had changed its name from Pigalle to Club 44, nothing stood in the way.
The concept: French cocktails, a wicked "safe space" atmosphere, French-inspired bar snacks. Wonderfully, the small venue was given a sparkling red bar, a chandelier, red velvet benches, a glittering wall and a mighty, very Parisian-looking awning. Perhaps a small problem: the restaurant is glazed on three sides, so it's the opposite of wicked and "safe space". This was solved with black curtains, so now you have a fully glazed, suspended restaurant. I don't know.
Other important atmospheric details are also lacking. No French music, no French staff, no French bar snacks, in fact no bar food at all, they're not ready yet, maybe in January. Most of the cocktails have French-sounding names and are house creations, "Juge pas" for example, a rosé crémant with falernum and grapefruit, looks pretty, tastes - like almost all signature cocktails - primarily sweet (€10). A "Smoke Grass" turned out to be a rather thin highball made from mezcal, curaçao and soda, also rather juvenile (€ 13).
Let's put it kindly: the concept could do with a little tweaking. And in the meantime, go to Le Troquet and see how a charmingly wicked French bar works.
Summary:
Creating a French bar with a pinch of wickedness is a good idea. You just have to know what it looks like. F

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