You don’t see enough candles these days. Not the smelly ones the fairer sex put around the bath, but a good old tallow candle in a good old candlestick, the kind old Victorians used to find their way to bed. Maybe it’s all the baby whales that have to die to make them. Who knows?
Anyway candles are in at Bar & Co., Helsinki’s newest social spot with one foot pleasingly in the past. It’s described as a cocktail bar, but don’t let that put you off, as we suspect there won’t be a Filofax to be seen in here on a Friday night.
Designer Joanna Laajisto has divided the bar into four distinct but linked rooms, offering customers a different kind of experience in each. A bar for cocktails (hence the name), a room with raised tables and stools for groups of post-work drinkers, the quieter library room for a more intimate chat with the boss about where your career is going, and lastly the green-panelled smoking room. Several features run through the rooms and hold them all together, such as the use of dark oak and marble. Classy.