Black tile and black paint all around, like the smokiest, upscale dark bathroom you've ever been in. Pretty groovy but bizarrely designed space. When you walk in from Schulterblatt (or should I say, walk down since it's underneath Haus 73), there's an empty annex, and then curtains before the entrance to the bar. The bar starts out rather thin, with what are realistically two person tables lining the sides, and the DJ's corner right up against the end of the bar. The bar itself wraps around like that Tetris block that leaves space below and above if you're not careful, but at 11pm on a Saturday, there was definitely no space to spare. Bizarrely in the back there is a massive group table at bar level set up like a group dining space, except there's no food and everyone's squashing into the people at the table. This dining room bit leaves a bit of negative space at the very end of the bar, where there is no furniture. We danced for a bit here when the crowd cleared out, but it's also not much of a dance space, probably due to the older clientele (to make an ageist judgment. Sorry!), despite having great music.
It makes sense given the prices - the cocktails are 9.50-10, and they don't really do beer. You can get 0,2 L of Becks or some other vague random passable thing von Fass, which is BOLD given that the bar is in what is usually considered the student area of town. So perhaps chambre basse will be the establishment to push schanze finally towards its already obvious gentrification, so that Schanze becomes the new Lange Reihe or something and every poor broke student who still wants to feel fancy and nice once in a while has to go east of the Alster instead.
Oh, drinks. I had a soda/mock tail, 5€ for some 0,2l of some cherry/honey thyme mixture, which I must say was delicious and not too sweet. I had sips of their dark and stormy, and Moscow mule - decent, but definitely light on alc for both, and the Moscow mule was particularly fascinating - a cucumber slice?? Really?? I recommend Minus in Karoviertel for slightly cheaper and better drinks in a less crowded space. read more