Bar Central Stockholm by Uglycute

Stockholm’s ‘tankovna’ Bar Central, designed by the local practice Uglycute, is a new take on a fictitious restaurant set somewhere in Central Europe. “We allowed ourselves to work quite theatrically and free with references and inputs,” explain the designers.

The tank bar – restaurateur Robert Rudinski’s second Stockholm venture – centres around two horizontal 500 litre stainless steel tanks that, with the addition of a countertop, double as a bar. “From the very beginning we knew that we wanted to have a central beercounter with cooling bath for the tankards, visible beertanks and so on, like the ones you can find in the Czech Republic.”

Architect Frederik Stenberg and artist Jonas Nobel envisioned a space with diversity, ranging from a slightly rowdy communal table to a set of reclusive dining booths. Aside from the menu that features Central European specialties such as ‘spätzle’, marb’wienerschnitzel’ and ‘lángos’, the deep green colour was also used throughout the interior from its sister outpost.

“During construction we discovered a beautiful marble floor beneath the wooden floor that we decide to keep. A lot came out of that. It is a greenish kind of Swedish marble, Kolmårdsmarmor, that works very well with the greenstained plywood and green felt of the benches. It effectively contrasted the red linoleum floor of the elevated part and so on,” explain the designers. The handpainted zigzag pattern on the ceiling is also a reference to Bar Centrals sister restaurant, on Södermalm in Stockholm, that has a green and white zigzag terrazzo floor. All the furniture was designed by Uglycute and made exclusively for the project.

Super fun, punchy, ballsy and brilliant!