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Location: Strada Cuza Vodă 30-32
Venue Type: Cocktail Bar / Speakeasy / Basement Bar
Year of Inscription: 2024
Map
Description
Gallery
| EBG Rating: | 8.2/10 |
| Choice/ Quality of Drinks | ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Signature cocktails and a high quality back bar, you can also order “off-menu” if you have particular favourites. |
| Style/ Décor | ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Doorway entrance next to a hotel – ring for service who will come and collect you. Push a false bookcase and descend into a basement with a lamplit bar and rooms/niches around from it, decorated individually, but with a boudoir/bohemian style. |
| Atmosphere/ Character | ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Dynamic at the bar with busy work and friendly patter, it is a well-staffed establishment. Each area of the bar has its own appeal – clandestine niches, the boudoir lounge or the hubbub of sitting at the bar itself, each of which are very pleasant. Despite clearly aping a big city bar, the nature of the city, the staff lends this a provincial quality – which sounds like a criticism, but really isn’t, making it feel more approachable, more fun. |
| Amenities/ Events | ❤️❤️ Table reservations, events, snacks |
| Value For Money | ❤️❤️❤️ The prices correspond to the quality without a doubt. Not one of Romania’s cheapest cocktail bars but not unfair in any way and certainly good value in comparison to equivalents. |
| Description | The highlight of Iasi’s bar scene, Dead Soldier Speakeasy takes the concept seriously, requiring you to call ahead and be given a password for entry. On arrival you are ushered to a false bookcase and asked to figure it out (it isn’t difficult). Descend into a suitably shady basement lair with the bar by the steps and lounge rooms and niches either side. Everything is clandestine, intimate, and the bar is well staffed too. Sat at the bar, the rhythms, rituals and patter of the mixologists help keep the vibe dynamic and friendly, while the lounges are boudoir like and distinctive, without the venue feeling like it was pasted from a template. Their signature cocktails are inventive while you can freely order “off menu” if there’s another cocktail you desire. Prices remain reasonable – these would easily command a higher price in a Western city – without being cheap. It is a bar where you will get out of it as much as you put in – the crowd was a predictable mixture of locals, visitors, and some characters splashing the cash. Such bars endow a city like Iasi with a sense of the cosmopolitan, while, in return Iasi’s provincial feel inadvertently adds to the atmosphere, making it less pretentious and more personal. I’m sure they would hate to be described as provincial but it just shows you there are more elements that make up a good bar than copying others and expecting the same result. An essential venue when visiting Iasi. (Added November 2024) |
