The first thing to note about Kyara, the “postmodern cocktail bar” at Barcelona’s new SLS hotel, is that it smells good: as soon as I step from the lift I’m wreathed in an exotic mix of labdanum, cedarwood, Mexican copal, white musk, neroli and oud. Fragrance is the theme here: “Kyara” is ancient Japanese for the highest grade of oud. Everything from the staff’s perfumer-style workwear jackets to the cocktail ingredients tips its hat to olfactory art.
Kyara is the vision of cocktail super-couple Alex Kratena and Monica Berg, the bartending duo behind London’s Tayēr & Elementary bar. Kratena and Berg have worked with the cream of food, fashion and design; between them, they’ve won an almost indecent haul of awards. So why choose a 471-bedroom, five-star hotel in Barcelona’s Port Forum district – a place better known for its marinas, beaches and hosting the Primavera Festival than its food and drink scene – for their next venture?
Kyara bar in Barcelona’s SLS hotel © Beatriz Janer
“It has an up-and-coming spirit – there are a lot of start-ups, creatives and innovators setting up here,” says Berg. Kratena has felt an affinity with Barcelona ever since doing a stage early on in his career at Tickets – the now closed tapas bar belonging to former El Bulli chef Ferran Adrià and his brother Albert. “We love working with local ingredients,” he says, “and when it comes to produce, Barcelona is a paradise.”
