Totally Stockholm 1
LUCY IN THE CELLAR WITH COCKTAILS Some of Stockho
lm’s most celebrated bartenders have joined forces. The result is a formidable little bar underneath Arnold’s and Spy Bar at Stureplan. Words: Peter Steen-Christensen We have over 500 Lucys in Sweden. I googled the name to find out it originates from Lucius and Lucia, originally meaning ‘of light’. But when you dig deeper you find that Lucy is someone who is beautiful both on the inside and outside. She’s a good friend. She never fails to make you smile. She understands. She’s always there for you and, apparently, without a Lucy in your life you’re nothing. I’d expect that all of this is exactly what new cocktail bar Lucy’s Flower Shop aspires to be. Renowned bartending quartet Hampus Thunholm, Alex Skärlén, Ola Carlson and Linn Sterling have set about the task of creating something close to the perfect cocktail bar. Their aim is to create a special experience for the guest, and to stimulate all the senses. Ola: To the unfamiliar bar visitor it will probably feel more like a restaurant visit than a bar visit, as you sit at your table and socialise with your company. It’s not a bar to mingle in. Of course you might meet someone and say hi but it’s more of a place where you’re with the people you’re here with. 8 I meet them on location at Lucy’s Flower Shop at the point where late afternoon morphs into early evening, on one of the first days they’re open. It’s small, intimate, and the first guests stumble in pretty much exactly as the clock strikes five. You probably know the feeling. Sometimes you can hardly wait to get that cocktail. And I mean it’s Thursday after all. O: We have a smaller range than a ‘normal’ bar has. We work very much with what we serve, our cocktail menu. That’s the core of our business. Apart from that we work with classic cocktails of course. We just don’t do it all. Right now we don’t do Bloody Marys. We don’t feel that we need to. Same thing with coffee cocktails. We can do other things instead. Hampus: We’ll grow slowly, to be able to keep everything perfect. We cannot serve everything and keep it perfect. Whatever people say, it can’t be done. O: All the classics, built on spirits, liqueur, citrus, sugar, bitter, we do all of that, with some exceptions like Clover Club since we do a cocktail with raspberry that’s similar. Otherwise we work from our cocktail menu. And what shall we say about the menu? You have developed it together, the four of you? O: We stand together. It begins with someone pitching an idea, someone adds an idea half way through and then it ends with a third idea. But it could be anything, right? It’s not supposed to lean on some theme? What about seasons? H: We’re extreme in that regard. But it’s not like we’re a ‘Nordic bar’ or an ‘American bar’ or something with a certain type of menu. Alex: You automatically work seasonally when you choose to work with fresh produce. But changing menu for Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn, we don’t feel tied to that. If we like something and can source the produce we’ll do it. O: We have decided, especially Alex and I when we began thinking about this project, before Hampus entered Photo: Hampus Danielsson