Rouge vs Rouge
I took a tour of Klub Rouge yesterday – the Klub Rouge that has everyone thinking Bar Rouge's Shanghai is coming to town. There is some confusion about this. I had heard that Beijing's Bar Rouge wasn't going to open due to problems with their investors, but Bar Rouge Executive Director Kyle Sun assured me, "Bar Rouge in Shanghai is working perfectly well with our investors and landlord, as a matter of fact, we're planning to extend our brand in another city outside of mainland China." But not in Beijing, "yet."
Although a French consultant who used to work with Bar Rouge from 2005-7 has done some work on Beijing's Klub Rouge, he has currently parted ways from both Bar Rouge and Klub Rouge, leaving absolutely no relationship between the two nightspots.
Ivan Zhang, a one-time manager at Bank, co-manager of Acupuncture Records – www.myspace.com/acupuncturerecords –, and the current assistant to the boss of Klub Rouge, told me that Klub Rouge was "not the same style" as Bar Rouge. Ivan also insisted that the Klub would not be "Chinese-style" like the Gongti Xilu clubs, but western style, with champagne and maybe even cigars that are hand-rolled in front of you. "The key-words are sexy and French red." (The walls are painted in French red, which means purple.)
Rouge boasts two VIP rooms, a two-floor VIP party area, and three walls of windows that hover over the Workers' Stadium from the 14th floor of China View Tower Three. It will be a lounge from 2-6pm, a bar from 6-10pm, and a club from 10pm-late. The 1,400sqm set-up is aiming for a late April or early May launch.
A few weeks later, the roof-deck is slated to open. Crowning the 14 story deck will be two dizzyingly high open-air VIP seating areas. The deck isn't big, but does have potential to be magnificent, as it stares down into the Workers' Stadium. At least for a few weeks in August, you'll be able to see all the way to the mountains.
The same owners are opening a German restaurant next door in June, and two weeks after, a sports-bar downstairs. For better or worse, the half-finished site feels like a glimpse into the flavor of the area that so far we've only seen in artists' renderings. "It went from Sanlitun," explains Ivan, "to Gongti Xilu, and now it's coming to the East Gate."