Beirut, Tuesday, August 4, 2020. A huge port explosion involving some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate rocks the Lebanese capital, leaving 218 dead, 7,500 injured and nine missing. Do you remember this dramatic news? At Electric Bing Sutt, Jad Ballout’s emblematic cocktail bar, at that time number 46 in the ranking of the best bars in the world, they were full at such a time. “At 5 pm we heard a sound and saw something in the sky. The first explosion was small, the second was terrible. We thought it was a terrorist attack,” says bartender Jade Ismail, Ballout’s right-hand man for 6 years. while detailing how he saw part of the local furniture jump through the air from the windows.
As with many other buildings, the one that housed Electric Bing Sutt was not spared from being completely devastated. Although it was located far from the port, the shock wave derived from the explosion spread so much that some even affirm that its effects were felt in neighboring countries such as Turkey, Syria or Israel. After that “it was time to start from 0”, recalls Ismail, explaining why they decided to call their second location Dead End Paradise (Paradiso without exit, in Spanish): “It was a bit of the feeling of the moment, the state of mind”.
They managed to rise from their ashes thanks to crowdfunding from the bar industry, which, out of solidarity with the cause, raised 40,000 euros for their new project. “It wasn’t a lot of money, but we recycled the machines that hadn’t been damaged from the old premises, and it’s also true that after the explosion everything cost much less.”
Now they have just disembarked in Barcelona with a delegation from their Dead End Paradise located in the Raval, specifically in a small street (Valldonzella, 30) perpendicular to Joaquim Costa, where a good part of the most punctual cocktail scene in the city is concentrated: from the the new Olimpic bar by Edir Malpartida, Antonio Naranjo and Adal Márquez, to Two Smucks, the fifth best bar in the world.
They have decided to open here because “even though Lebanon is an amazing country, you never know what can happen,” says Ismail. “One day a war may break out, another day there may be an explosion, another day there will be protests in the street. You never know if the next day you will be able to work or not, that’s why we came to Europe.”
Although the decoration of the new place is similar to that of the Lebanese Dead End Paradise, with neon lights and a rather hipster industrial style in which there is no shortage of the wildest patterns and prints, its cocktail proposal inspired by the kitchen of the new country that welcomes them instead of those Asian touches that Ballout normally resorts to in his drinks. Among them, the umami of the Pa amb tòmaquet cocktail is surprising, which they prepare as if it were a variant of Bloody Mary with coconut, tomato juice, salt and olive oil, among other ingredients.
Also curious (and delicious) is the Gilda cocktail that they make emulating the flavor of the popular Basque pintxo, or the Ivory, a kind of Dirty Lichy Martini to which they add a touch of matcha tea. “Before opening we went out to eat and drink a lot in Spain, we wanted to go in another direction, do different things,” says Ismail, who is in charge of the team at the Barcelona delegation of Dead End Paradise, made up almost entirely of women, something that still unfortunately surprises in the bar industry.
Before ordering a drink, it’s worth taking a look at their sensory menu, which is crowded with embossed Polaroid photographs by a Lebanese artist to help imagine what the cocktail will be like visually and tactilely. Or smell the candles that decorate the table, impregnated with the aroma of his creations.
