Joo Chiat speakeasy Gaudi Room pays homage to the famous Spanish architect

[SINGAPORE] Tapas joint Carlitos opened in 2024 with a nondescript, walled-off section in the back that looked as if it might lead to a storeroom. A year later, the curtain was finally pulled back to reveal Gaudi Room, a small “hidden” bar.

For founders Antonio Miscellaneo and Carlos Montobbio, having a separate area for cocktails within Carlitos was always on the cards. “We actually designed the restaurant with space to build this bar from the opening,” says Miscellaneo.

He recounts customers at his other restaurant – La Bottega Enoteca, just a few doors down – asking him for “follow-up experiences” after dinner. “I had nowhere to send them anywhere nearby, but opening a bar on its own is difficult to sustain, so this was the best way.”

The duo, however, decided to launch Carlitos before Gaudi Room so they could take more time to perfect the speakeasy’s look and feel.

Inspired by and named after Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, the bar’s design features his signature organic shapes, including rounded pilasters that transition seamlessly into the walls, as well as custom-carved wood fittings and two long tables.

Explaining why they focused on Gaudi Room only after operations at Carlitos were “fairly stable”, Miscellaneo says: “We knew it would take longer, especially for the level of detail we wanted.”

Emulating Gaudi’s “quirky” style added an extra layer of complexity, he adds: “It’s not just a room, tiles, a couple of pieces of furniture; we needed time.”

Everything in the 23-seater space was chosen or even made by the founders, down to the ceramic tile mosaic tabletops and the matching upholstery on a bench that anchors a corner. In all, putting the bar together took around four months.

A new experience

With Gaudi Room being both Miscellaneo’s and Montobbio’s first cocktail bar, they faced a steep learning curve, particularly when it came to developing the menu.

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Montobbio, who is also the chef-owner of Esquina in Chinatown, notes that mixology requires a high level of precision; after all, each drink is only so many ounces of liquid, which leaves little room for error.

“When we taste a cocktail, we may feel it needs a little sweetness; then we add two drops of sugar syrup, and the cocktail is completely changed,” he explains. “It’s not as forgiving as food.”

After working with a consultant on an initial draft for the menu, Miscellaneo and Montobbio set to work on fine-tuning things, infusing each drink with “Spanish and Latin touches”.

Among the cocktails in the final line-up is the Margarita de La Vera – Montobbio’s favourite – which includes an infusion of smoked paprika sourced from the county in western Spain from which the drink gets its name.

Another of Montobbio’s top picks is the La Sagrada Paloma: a spicy, Asian-inspired iteration of the classic paloma that includes togarashi and a kimchi base, named for the still-unfinished Barcelona church that is perhaps the architect’s most famous creation.

For Miscellaneo, meanwhile, bourbon-based The Smoking Architect was a fast favourite.

“I drink cocktails very fast… I usually gulp them down, and in one second – gone,” he says with a laugh. “But with The Smoking Architect, I can pace it a little more; the drink develops and gets rounder as the ice melts.”

Also on Gaudi Room’s menu is the Veneno de la Pasion, a Spanish riff on a porn star martini served with a sidecar of cava instead of the usual champagne. Then there’s the Gaudoni Negroni, which adds cassis and cacao to the traditional negroni for a bold, almost dessert-like concoction.

Miscellaneo and Montobbio intend to continually refresh the menu with their team, further refining existing drinks and introducing new ones to keep things interesting.

In line with the speakeasy theme, the duo has opted to let news of the bar spread mostly through word of mouth.

“If you come, a friend brings you over, you have a good time and the drinks are good… you will come back with another bunch of friends,” Montobbio concludes. “There’s no better marketing than that.”