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A Bar with Shapes for a Name

London

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Signposted by not words but shapes – a yellow triangle, red square and blue circle – Remy Savage and Paul Lougrat’s east London bar doesn’t have a spoken or written name. Shapes, as has become oral shorthand, is an ode to the school of Bauhaus; everything inside has been designed through the prism of functionalism and minimalism. The furniture and space take you to 1920s Weimar, while the mixed drinks are made from an intentionally restricted (and blind tasted) back bar of spirits.

The resulting cocktails are clean in appearance, and efficient in execution, even if there are layers of thought and modernist techniques behind each of them. Pastel, pre-batched in a bottle and poured into a long glass within seconds, flies. It’s a long drink of effervescent raspberry, rhubarb, lime and vodka, but ask one of the bartenders – dressed in splendidly bright yet utilitarian overalls – and they’ll talk you through the painstaking process. A busy bar, early next year Shapes gains space, as it opens up the site downstairs.

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