Goodbye Sparks. Hello Bay 146. Nightclubs seem to be going out of style in Chennai. So much for Sean Kingston's ‘Sleep all day, and party all night' revolution. Now it's all about grown up bars and lounges. Less dancing-till-dawn fuelled by tequila shots. More designer lounges boasting fine wines and exotic cocktails.
Young Tomasz Malinowski, a mixologist from Poland, is their in-house bartender. He's created 146 custom made cocktails for the bar, (Like The Park's 601, this bar is also inspired by the hotel's address: 146, R K Salai). The music is courtesy 10 Feet Concrete, which might sound an entry in the diary of a particularly meticulous mobster, but in reality is a South African band. Hailing from Cape Town the band performs everything from Bon Jovi to Bruno Mars, Adele to Lady Gaga.
Savera's new three-level space is a calculated departure from Sparks. There are cabanas, elegant white leather couches and a terrace overlooking the pool. (Always nice to drink Cosmopolitans while watching someone far more disciplined complete their 20 daily laps a few feet away.) However, Bay 146 is not quite a ‘grown up lounge' either. Instead it shoots for an indeterminate space between the two, presumably aiming to draw everyone from the fastidiously-grungy young to the perfectly blow-dried kitty party crowd. It's a strange mix, but then this is a space that will take on the energy and vibe of the crowd that inhabits it. It remains to be seen how that unfolds.
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