Urban art movement

On a typical Friday night on Club Street, the bars are bustling with expatriates and locals alike celebrating the eve of the weekend with after-work drinks in hand. The latest addition to this slew of trendy watering holes is the Deliciae Group’s latest brainchild, 83, a combination of urban art, progressive sounds and a kitchen offering an innovative, French-inspired take on food.

The Deliciae Group also owns L’Entrecote-The Steak and Fries Bistro serving a plat du jour of steak frites and Sabio, the hip and trendy tapas bar. “For 83, we wanted to provide urban artists and underground DJs with a scene to showcase their work,” says Olivier Bendel, owner of the group. Currently, there are paste-ups of a buxomly 60s pin up girl sitting on a box of Crayola crayons done by Eric Foenander and another of a kitschy pastiche of comic book icons created by Mojoko. The works, which are curated by Kult’s creative director Steve Lawler, also include paste-ups by Sheryo, Kristal Melson and Speak Cryptic but new pieces are put up every six to eight weeks.

Against this ever-changing backdrop of hyper-colour paste-ups, The Stripe Collective, a local multidisciplinary design agency, creates a setting with furnishings made from natural materials like glass, metal, wood and leather in muted down colours. The unpolished parquet flooring boasts a Missoni-like zig-zag pattern in various shades of brown, walls are embedded with metallic fish-shaped scales while dark Georginian panelling and leather armchairs evoke a Victorian approach.

Excerpt from the November issue of epicure.