Barrio Central is a cocktail bar, kitchen and basement club located in the heart of London’s Soho, minutes from Oxford Circus. A clash of Latin cities, cultures and quarters, with a warm and welcoming neighbourhood vibe, we have a passion for exquisite drinks, fresh cooking and great music.
Barrio Central’s neighbourhood is inclusive of anyone with a similar mindset rather than geographic locality. A love of music in all its worldly genres, an appreciation of upcoming musicians, artists and urban poets, combined with an appetite for food and drink sourced from all corners and served how they should be - you're in Barrio's 'hood!
Unique cocktails include the bestselling Brazilian Lady (Abelhad cachaca, passion fruit and cool lemon £7), the richly more-ish Rum & Raisin Swizzle (El Dorado, rum, berries lychees & rose petals £7), served with dark chocolate, the Pacific Twitch (Sailor Jerry spiced rum, apple, ginger, falernum and Ting/ Hawaii) served in a ceramic rum barrel, and The No Brainer (Barrio’s signature cocktail), which serves 2 to share (Herradura tequilas, guava, pineapple, grapefruit, fizz £20) in a Lucha Libre wrestling mask.
Barrio’s interior is a delightful jumble of found, reclaimed and reinvented objects from around the world. ‘The space is about appropriating items away from their original uses,’ says Ferdie. Brightly-coloured rubber buckets are reborn as lampshades over the chrome bar, itself shaped like an Airstream trailer, wastepaper basket lights cluster above junkshop-chic 1960s armchairs, and yellow mesh flooring becomes a striking wall behind the bar.
Much of the ground floor is occupied by 1950s kitchen Formica tables and resprayed jelly-tot coloured chairs. Bare bulbs dangle over display cabinet tables, each curated by a different artist (our favourite is the plastic sunbathing chicken in outsize shades). On the right hand wall, three rows of tiles are ingeniously left naked so that customers can add their own mark, message or artwork. Beyond the bar is ‘The Porch’, available for small parties to hire, a raised garden-style area with fake grass, deckchairs, weather-boarding and a park bench.
Downstairs is darker and more sparsely furnished, a place to dance or hide away, but look closely at the detail: Hawaiian hula-girl murals, ‘Art Behind Bars’ (an exhibition space given over to artists), upside-down lampshade umbrellas, and two further spaces perfect for parties: the Stone-Clad Corner, with its fibreglass wall, and The Shack, complete with an original Rubik’s Cube coffee table.
Barrio’s stylized interior, with table service throughout, is reflected in the drinks menu. Conceived as a gatefold vinyl single, and stuffed with rather stealable ‘Barrio Central’ 7” records, the menu flits its way through the libations of the Caribbean, as well as Latin, Central and North Americas, and Europe and beyond.
