Chilling Out with Buddha
The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Sun, 10/26/2008 4:39 PM |
The Dutch Immigration Building has graced a street corner in Menteng, Central Jakarta, for nearly 100 years. Now the former administrative office and museum is being made over into something beyond its architects’ wildest dreams: The latest word in Jakarta – and Asian – nightlife. Welcome super-hip French franchise the Buddha Bar. Imogen Badgery-Parker went to find out more.
Many will tell you that Jakarta is a happening place right now: vibrant and vigorous with an appetite for the new and plenty of cashed-up clubgoers ready to party the night away. And as the fine aroma of lucre and liveliness wafts across the seas, the entrepreneurs are coming to town.
The most recent of these, jostling with nightspots Dragonfly and Blowfish for the attention of the city’s beautiful people, is the Buddha.
Many will tell you that Jakarta is a happening place right now: vibrant and vigorous with an appetite for the new and plenty of cashed-up clubgoers ready to party the night away. And as the fine aroma of lucre and liveliness wafts across the seas, the entrepreneurs are coming to town.
The most recent of these, jostling with nightspots Dragonfly and Blowfish for the attention of the city’s beautiful people, is the Buddha.
Or rather, the Buddha Bar, a franchise replicating the iconic Parisian lounge cited in the right magazines as being on par with the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. The Paris Buddha Bar is the kind of place where celebrities get photographed having lavish parties and tourists get snapped with the 6-meter-tall Buddha before stopping by the gift shop for a key ring.Entrepreneur Raymond Visan, CEO of the George V group of records, spas, eateries and sleeperies, successfully built a new concept on the early 1990s Western fad for the East, when Asian food, objets and music were hot, and the Buddha himself was the king of cool. The Paris Buddha Bar is a grand monument – or grand cavern – to orientalism, boasting a “subtle mix” of Asian cultures (Chinese dragon, Khmer statues, Japanese artifacts) that is exotic, but not confronting, for your average European.
But Visan’s concept was about more than mere chinoiserie. Described as being “for those who have outgrown clubbing”, the Buddha Bar was designed as a place people could soak up some ambiance, tunes and a few drinks, and still get to work the next morning.
The bar was a hit, so Buddha hit the road, popping up in such cities as Dubai, Kiev, Dublin, New York and São Paulo. One has just opened in London, and hot on its heels is the very first Buddha Bar in Asia, right here in happening Jakarta.
“Jakarta is an exciting place to be right now,” says Renny Sutiyoso, one of the owners and the public face of the Jakarta Buddha Bar. “People in Jakarta spend a lot of money, and they like to eat nice things.”
And what a coup for the Big Durian: With the Asian glitterati having a Buddha Bar in their neighborhood – “You don’t have to go to Paris to go to the Buddha Bar,” says Renny – well-heeled visitors from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are likely to pop over to chill out in the lounge.
They might not travel the distance, but they won’t miss out on an authentic experience, because the one here is modeled faithfully on its Parisian big sister.
And what a coup for the Big Durian: With the Asian glitterati having a Buddha Bar in their neighborhood – “You don’t have to go to Paris to go to the Buddha Bar,” says Renny – well-heeled visitors from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are likely to pop over to chill out in the lounge.
They might not travel the distance, but they won’t miss out on an authentic experience, because the one here is modeled faithfully on its Parisian big sister.
Not that it’s a carbon copy, the operators insist: A ratio of about 70 percent applies, allowing variations from the original for local tastes and venue. (The choice of the Dutch Immigration Building was made by Visan himself.) The “exotic” décor, with Asian art and artifacts, has the same feel, right down (or up) to a massive Buddha, but even here are little changes: The Jakarta walls are not the Parisian red but exactly – exactly, no cheating allowed – the same rare blue found in Beijing’s Forbidden City.
The “Pacific Rim/pan-Asian” menu also follows the 70 percent rule, allowing small variations from the French menu for local produce, and cocktails feature the same rare sake used in Paris to mix up that special Buddha Bar taste.
And never, never, forget the music (as if you ever could, fans would say), the same Buddha Bar world beats/chill out/lounge music famous around the world (up to a dozen CDs and counting, and perhaps better known in Indonesia than the Parisian establishment itself).
These strict specifications have made the setup onerous and doubled the workload: Extensive renovations, key Indonesian staff shipped off to Paris for training and famous DJ Sam Potat (of Buddha Bar compilation CD VII) coming to teach local DJs how to get the beat just right.
Getting it all just right – Visan is known to pop in to check – may be tough, but then, you don’t open a franchise because you want to indulge your own creative vision.
You open a franchise to trade on a strong name. And the owners of the Jakarta Buddha Bar are banking on that name, hoping there’s success and prestige to be found in importing orientalism to the Orient.
Could be: The buzz around town is building.
People are gossiping about what lies ahead, says Renny. She should know: the 28-year-old daughter of the former governor is one of Jakarta’s most active young women around town. People are lining up to be among the first to be seen at the Jakarta Buddha Bar.
But how long can you trade on a name? With so much else competing for the attention of a relatively small and stable base of modish and moneyed locals and expats, how do you keep them coming back?
The answer: It will be different to everything else here and it will be good.
Of course, “good” is a very broad term. When the London Buddha Bar opened in September, the food critics were not impressed. “The menu feels very 90s-déjà vu,” wrote one. “A sprinkling of clichéd Chinese dishes,” wrote another.
But even they conceded they were probably missing the point.
“If you come here only to eat, you will be disappointed,” Raymond Visan was quoted as saying of the Paris Buddha Bar in a French magazine years ago. “You could eat better and more cheaply if you stayed at home.”
The Buddha Bar is about the experience, about stepping out of this world and into another one – one that massages your senses with sights, sounds, textures, tastes and the sheer darn size of the place. No cozy intimacy here: The Jakarta restaurant seats 240, and the lounge and patio can take 700 – still allowing room to wander around looking at the art.
But if you want to share the experience, you have to dress for the occasion. The Jakarta franchise might not (initially) have guest-list-only entry as in Paris, but not just anyone can wander in.
The rules are simple – you’re not getting through that door if you’re not dressed to the nines. And tens and elevens. It appears the Buddha Bar clientele are as much a part of the décor as the Enlightened One himself.
Who will be there every night, of course, a grand unique antique, overseeing the festivities in a purely unofficial capacity.
“It’s not at all religious,” the owners repeat, perhaps needlessly, for with the Buddha Bar such a temple to luxury and sensuality, it’s unlikely anyone ever seriously thought it was.
Buddha Bar Jakarta
Jl Teuku Umar 1, Menteng
10350 Jakarta
www.buddha-bar.co.id
info@buddha-bar.co.id
Tel (021) 3900899
The “Pacific Rim/pan-Asian” menu also follows the 70 percent rule, allowing small variations from the French menu for local produce, and cocktails feature the same rare sake used in Paris to mix up that special Buddha Bar taste.
And never, never, forget the music (as if you ever could, fans would say), the same Buddha Bar world beats/chill out/lounge music famous around the world (up to a dozen CDs and counting, and perhaps better known in Indonesia than the Parisian establishment itself).
These strict specifications have made the setup onerous and doubled the workload: Extensive renovations, key Indonesian staff shipped off to Paris for training and famous DJ Sam Potat (of Buddha Bar compilation CD VII) coming to teach local DJs how to get the beat just right.
Getting it all just right – Visan is known to pop in to check – may be tough, but then, you don’t open a franchise because you want to indulge your own creative vision.
You open a franchise to trade on a strong name. And the owners of the Jakarta Buddha Bar are banking on that name, hoping there’s success and prestige to be found in importing orientalism to the Orient.
Could be: The buzz around town is building.
People are gossiping about what lies ahead, says Renny. She should know: the 28-year-old daughter of the former governor is one of Jakarta’s most active young women around town. People are lining up to be among the first to be seen at the Jakarta Buddha Bar.
But how long can you trade on a name? With so much else competing for the attention of a relatively small and stable base of modish and moneyed locals and expats, how do you keep them coming back?
The answer: It will be different to everything else here and it will be good.
Of course, “good” is a very broad term. When the London Buddha Bar opened in September, the food critics were not impressed. “The menu feels very 90s-déjà vu,” wrote one. “A sprinkling of clichéd Chinese dishes,” wrote another.
But even they conceded they were probably missing the point.
“If you come here only to eat, you will be disappointed,” Raymond Visan was quoted as saying of the Paris Buddha Bar in a French magazine years ago. “You could eat better and more cheaply if you stayed at home.”
The Buddha Bar is about the experience, about stepping out of this world and into another one – one that massages your senses with sights, sounds, textures, tastes and the sheer darn size of the place. No cozy intimacy here: The Jakarta restaurant seats 240, and the lounge and patio can take 700 – still allowing room to wander around looking at the art.
But if you want to share the experience, you have to dress for the occasion. The Jakarta franchise might not (initially) have guest-list-only entry as in Paris, but not just anyone can wander in.
The rules are simple – you’re not getting through that door if you’re not dressed to the nines. And tens and elevens. It appears the Buddha Bar clientele are as much a part of the décor as the Enlightened One himself.
Who will be there every night, of course, a grand unique antique, overseeing the festivities in a purely unofficial capacity.
“It’s not at all religious,” the owners repeat, perhaps needlessly, for with the Buddha Bar such a temple to luxury and sensuality, it’s unlikely anyone ever seriously thought it was.
Buddha Bar Jakarta
Jl Teuku Umar 1, Menteng
10350 Jakarta
www.buddha-bar.co.id
info@buddha-bar.co.id
Tel (021) 3900899
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