Nuts Indulgence Club, nocturnal animals

At the beginning of the last decade, when the absurd obsession with rankings was already starting to emerge, a speakeasy located in a main street of the Eixample received the award for "best cocktail bar in Europe". That mythical speakeasy, founded by Kim Díaz, was called Mutis; and clients such as Woody Allen, Robert de Niro or Russell Crowe paraded through its bar.

There they drank, ate, listened to music and smoked with the same fervor as 1930s Chicago. But one day, with the coldness of a father opening the curtains to flood the night owl son's room with light, the administration decreed the cessation of activity due to license problems. Neither the rankings nor the awards could save Mutis, and the birds that gathered there had to leave the nest. The party was over. Everyone go home. Prohibition.

If we start by talking about Mutis, it is because Nuts partly reembodies its spirit. From the typography of the logo to the reddish tones of its interior, the homage is evident. But this time, and to avoid scares with law enforcement, the establishment has all its papers in order.

Josep Maria Morera and Lázaro Rosa-Violán, the parents of the creature, have turned Nuts into the club they would like to be members of. This dance couple has known each other for years, and had previously collaborated on other projects, but always at the request of third parties. Here, the clients have been them, and the creative freedom they have had translates into a bar that synthesizes many years of scouring antique shops, decorating venues and reading expensive magazines.

Both Morera and Rosa-Violán are two names linked to design who have dedicated their lives to transforming corporate identities and spaces. Both are still active, but when it comes to having a drink after work, why not do it in your own bar?

Morera, in charge of managing the business and acting as host, reveals the improbable scenario in which he met Rosa-Violán, his partner in crime in this adventure. "One day we coincided on a chairlift in Baqueira-Beret, specifically the Dossau one, which takes its time and allows you to chat for a while," he recalls. From that fortuitous encounter arose several professional collaborations that have led to this joint project.

In Nuts, everything has a name and surname. The windows overlooking the Rosselló / Muntaner chamfer belonged to a castle in Carcassonne, the wooden caryatids come from a place in Amsterdam, and the bar stools have been recovered from a scrapped 1960s cruise ship. Murano lamps and Parisian fabrics dress a space where, from Thursday to Saturday, you can listen to live jazz, swing, and blues. A rare incentive in the city.

Charging €20 for cocktails and €15 for glasses of wine gives clues about the type of clientele Nuts seeks. "Our clients are mainly tourists and foreigners living in the city who are looking for a somewhat exclusive concept," explains Morera. The person shaking the cocktail shaker at Nuts is Gerard Vaquer, a young bartender from Castellón who prepares concoctions like the Bloody Mary with Tío Pepe or the whisky sour with Macallan. Jerez, Scotland, Barcelona.

If alcoholic mixtures whet our appetite, you can also dine at Nuts. The house proposal is a formula of four tapas, desserts, and petits-fours. The quality of the ingredients used –truffled foie, Norwegian salmon, red tuna from Cadiz, king crab, and sweets from Faixat pastry shop– is related to the €75 cost of the snack, in a city where any tataki of dubious origin costs twenty euros. Eddie Arola, a veteran of Barcelona's hospitality industry, versed in the textures of the night and who knows how to move well in the velvety interiors of this Felliniesque ship, is in charge of the room.

The name of the venue, Nuts, is accompanied by the words Indulgence Club, which means that, in this place, hedonism is articulated through a community of members. Although the cocktail bar is freely accessible to the public, becoming a member of the club has some advantages, such as being able to use the exclusive application that allows you to reserve a table.

The requirement to join involves an initial payment of between 2,000 and 4,000 euros, money that, unlike other clubs, is not lost, but goes to each member's personal account, a credit with which they can pay for drinks on their successive visits.

Morera explains that, in the mid-70s, he discovered the song Nuts –performed by George Melly & The Feetwarmers– and that, after listening to it a few times, he thought that "Nuts" sounded very good, that it had flow, and that if he ever, when he grew up, opened a bar, that name would be perfect.