Some of you may not know Shun Clayton, but she’s the one who made Frangipani happen in the first place and on Sunday is her (won’t mention which, but it’s a big one) birthday. So we’re celebrating at Frangi, of course. The new long bar will be covered with South American nibbles and the DJ will be spinning Salsa inspired tunes. Dancing and drinking will definitely be going on ’til the wee hours of the morning and champagne corks will pop. The bar will remain open to the public and if you’re really nice to me, I’ll buy you a drink.

Once again, Happy Birthday Shun and thanks for all the support and the ideas and the feedback and the many happy evenings at Frangi and at your home and in Paris (am I going on a bit?)… Anyway, let’s party!

P.S.: I’ll take before and after party pictures of Shun and post them

Yesterday we opened the new upstairs bar to the public for the very first time and of course a lot of the work was finished at the very last minute. We had a private function at six thirty, but at seven, the workers were still gluing the new round glass bar together with silicone. They promised that on Monday they would come, take it all apart again and set the joints properly. I asked how long it would take for the silicone to dry and they told me two hours. By now it was seven thirty pm, so at ten o’clock we took the stickers off, put the ice buckets on the bar and started making Grey Goose cocktails. All was well… for a while…

Around midnight the first glass plate on the top started to sink slowly and Amin propped it up with a highball glass. Then the side panel on the left tilted in and we glued it back in place with masking tape and that’s when we noticed that one of the curved panes in the front was tilting outward. So this was no longer supporting the top shelf, which threatened to fall behind the bar. By two in the morning we had literally glued the whole thing together with tape and had to stop using this bar at all. Seeing five staff standing there, just to hold up the bar was quite a sight!

This morning the glass guys came back and stuck all in place again, so we hope that by tonight it will be safe to use.. Time will tell!

First of all I’m going to give you a glimpse of things to come, so look at the pics and see whether you can figure out what these little impressions of the new bar actually show. Here’s my own official announcement: The New Upstairs Bar will open on Thursday 21st February (very, very softly) and with a little bit of luck, the bar will by then be propped up.
This, you see has been the problem. Our new round bar is clad in 250kg of curved, coloured glass (I know it sounds garish, but it’s actually very tasteful, trust me) and the weight of it is supposed to be carried by a rigid stainless steel plate. Our dear contractor, however supplied 6mm plywood. Even if you’re not an engineer, you’ll be able to figure out that this will not carry 250kg, in fact, it didn’t carry me (75kg) and promptly broke when I stood on it, and then it was Chinese New Year. Go and visit the new bar next weekend and tell me what you think.

It’s a Monday and I’m sitting in the kitchen stewing and I don’t mean that in a good way. I’m fuming! The reason is called “contractor”. The new renovated bar has a stunning round glass bar in it and it took us a while to get the colour right, so our contractor threatened that this might delay the opening and today, the glass has arrived, but the frame IS NOT READY!! This means that we are not opening as planned on Thursday 7th. So to console myself I’m going to go upstairs and unwrap all the gorgeous furniture that the gorgeous guests will be lolling around on (hopefully soon). I’m going to take a few shots and post them, so you can see what I mean and I think you’re going to love the new bar. Guess this gives us time to make a few more new cocktails. Look forward to exotica: Sheherazade; Apple Blush and Albiteqoca will be shaken, stirred and muddled by the best barmen in town.