Bar Apothek, which was one of the best in SP, temporarily returns as an art gallery

It was with a “bite of nostalgia” that Ale D’Agostino defined the feeling of opening a new bar after moving to the other side of the bar and creating the brand APTK Spitits, a bottled cocktail company.

Owner of the former Apothek bar, elected the best in São Paulo by the jury of Sheet in 2019, he reopens a branch in São Paulo. This time, inside Gabriel Wickbold’s What’s Next art gallery — the APTKX, which won the “X” for “experience”.

Just like the old Apothek, which definitely closed its doors in 2020, the new bar says it seeks a connection with art, as the old address also shared space with a kind of gallery. In that case, it was the studio of the artist Filipe Grimaldi.

The newly opened balcony in Wickbold’s gallery is about five meters long, with five stools. But the public that attended the opening, on Saturday, the 5th, preferred to leave bags and belongings on the seats and stroll through the works of art, socializing standing up, in a great movement of seeing and being seen.

For D’Agostino, the partnership with an artistic space is part of the enterprise and should be maintained if APTKX maintains the activity for longer. That’s because the initiative is ephemeral — both the bar and the gallery have a date set to end, which will happen very soon. Inaugurated less than a week ago, the counter will only remain there until December, as the artistic space will be replaced by a building.

More than a two-month experiment, D’Agostino says that the initiative is an opportunity to put the model of bottled cocktails into practice. APTK Spirits brand of ready-to-drink drinks in a bottle, is in well-known São Paulo addresses, such as the Vista restaurant, in Ibirapuera Park, the Pirajá chain bars and the Emiliano hotel, for example.

APTKX, of course, serves some of the brand’s best-known drinks: negroni, gin and tonic, scarlatti tonic, fitzgerald and old fashioned — all priced at R$39. The bartender explains that the goal is not to replace the experience of a bar, where mixologists create and reproduce recipes on the spot, or just serve ready-made cocktails. According to him, the intention is to use the mixtures as part of the drinks that the public can consume while visiting the gallery.

“I’ve always liked to think of the drink as an adjunct, as a link between people and art, fashion, design, music and culture in general”, says D’Agostino.

During the opening, the Wickbold musical group performed for an audience that was divided between the balcony and the red staircase that leads to the works on the second floor. The audience that was there for the gallery or to hear the band sums up the spirit that D’Agostino says he brought back from the old Apothek.

“The bar was frequented by people of different ages, even young people who, in general, don’t usually drink cocktails”, he says. He also recalls that, at Apothek, many women used to go to the bar alone. “They went unaccompanied because they knew it was a safe environment, where no one would disturb them.”

Space is not the same. But D’Agostino reckons the space DNA has been retained, which he hopes will appeal to Apothek’s orphans. “I wanted to do something outside the obvious Gardens.”