Begin the Beguine – A Bar for Super Special People
10,000 bottles of beer on the wall…
Standing on the empty streets outside the bar, Begin the Beguine, the ethereal sounds of Jane Birkin accompanied by Moroccan musicians lure me in. I pause to contemplate the strangely-angled door – was it under construction? Broken? No, it was designed this way.
Entering the bar, you get more of the same – you feel as if you’ve entered a Juan Gris still life – everywhere you look there are clusters of acute-angled architecture, bottles or musical instruments. The owner, Tony, has designed the bar in order to “maximize every millimeter”. This translates into fragmenting the space into a host of irregular nooks and crannies providing a coziness that most bars lack.
Tony, originally from Morocco, has a fascination with antiques and has installed his bottle collection in the bar. Thousands of bottles line the walls in custom-made glass cases.
I’m the only one in the bar. I’ve never been here before, but instantly feel like a regular. Tony treats me right – following up on my fascination with the unearthly Birkin disc, he throws on an acoustic soul CD that turns my head inside out, and later follows up with what he describes as “intellectual Arab music”.
The intervening hours are spent chatting about life the universe and everything.
I’m finally coerced into trying one of his famous capiriñas, which only set you back 6 euros and are served in something that resembles a small, square fish tank – even the glasses in this joint are cubist!
As the intellectual Arab music begins Tony breaks out snacks on the house: a whole wheat baguette with goat cheese, crushed almonds and prunes.
Tony explains that his bar attracts special people “not the fashionable people”, but the special ones. I trust that those people find their way here.
Begin the Beguine
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