Located inside Hotel Sanders in Copenhagen city center, TATA is what everyone wants from a hotel bar: charming, beautiful, and decadent; plus they make some of the city’s best cocktails.
Indre By’s TATA, located inside Hotel Sanders, is named after the red velvet curtain at the neighboring Royal Theatre. It’s a perfect analogy for a space as full of class and decadent charm as this hotel bar. Serving up classic cocktails as well as an evolving set of signature drinks, visitors come for the pours and stay for the atmosphere
Launched in 2018, TATA’s extensive cocktail list includes everything from rare spirits to Champagne to non-alcoholic options, alongside its famed cocktails. It’s the perfect spot to watch locals and people from around the globe near the hub of Copengahen’s city center.
Isak Pais, Head of TATA Cocktail Bar at Hotel Sanders, Copenhagen, tells us…
Please describe TATA as if you’re explaining the experience of walking through the doors and ordering your first drink.
Stepping through the door, you leave Copenhagen behind, to enter an intimate, warm, cozy, dimly lit space. It doesn’t look like your typical Copenhagen bar, if anything it’ll remind you of something more international in style and décor, but from the very moment you enter, we will do our very best to make sure you feel welcome and well attended to. We run a very personal style of table service, and we encourage personality to shine through because we have some amazing people working here. Jokes are cracked and we’ll go out of our way to meet any request – as long as you’re respectful and contributing to the good atmosphere, you’re welcome at TATA.
How would you describe TATA in a three-word text to a friend that you’re trying to convince to join you?
“First on us”
Other than TATA, what else is happening in the neighborhood that you’re in?
We’re right around the corner from the Royal Danish Theatre and there are a bunch of amazing restaurants, cocktail bars, museums, and galleries in the vicinity, so plenty of things to do either before or after a visit to TATA.
Aside from Happy Hour, when is the best time to get to the bar?
I think it depends on what you want out of your night, but also what time of the year and which day of the week you go. The buzzing energy that fills our modest space, tickets stacking up in the rail, music towards the more electronic side of our playlist, people laughing and having a great time on Friday night in the wintertime – nothing beats that, in my opinion.
Another time to highlight would be right when we open on weekdays. It’s nice and quiet, you can talk to the bartenders and watch the bar fill up with pre-dinner guests. Have a nice little cocktail and a couple of snacks and you’re bound to have a great start to your evening – even a Monday can become a blast!
Describe the average drinkers that you serve?
We have a very good mix of locals and tourists, not to mention in-house guests, since we’re a hotel bar. Our clientele is usually late 20’s and up, and appreciators of great food and drinks, and are usually involved in either finance or the creative industries. We have a lot of very lovely and inspiring people visiting us.
Please tell us more about your drinks menu.
On the 1st of April we changed our cocktail menu to be more fitting of the spring and summer season. It’s inspired by the traditional performative arts such as ballet, theatre, and opera. Generally, we want to showcase complexity through simplicity. For instance, our garnishes are relatively minimalistic and with a sense of purpose, otherwise we leave it out. If you can clearly isolate three flavors that work well together in a balanced and smart serve, it’s a good cocktail. We want to communicate an understanding of seasonality, storytelling, and product knowledge through all our cocktails.
What’s your signature drink–or your favorite drink currently on the menu–and why should I order it?
In terms of a signature cocktail, it’s a little tricky. On every menu, a couple of cocktails gets very popular with our guests, and sort of earns the spot as a “signature” for that menu. And you can never really tell which ones it’ll be before you roll out the menu. One of the more recent cocktails to earn that status and one I loved, the East-West Sazerac, got nominated for “Best Signature Cocktail” by Bartender’s Choice Awards, the most prestigious industry award show in the Nordics. You should order it because it encapsulates a lot of interesting flavors found in Denmark but served in a very familiar and approachable format. Stauning Rye Whisky from the west and fig leaves from Bornholm in the east! Mathias (Assistant Bar Manager) and the team really nailed that one.
How much do drinks cost?
Our drinks average around 150 DKK. If it includes rare spirits or notoriously more expensive products such as fancy agave spirits or champagne, it might be a little pricier, if it’s a more generic long drink, it’s lower, but the average is around 150 DKK. We value quality products and generally you get your money’s worth in terms of alcohol, we’re not shy of a healthy pour, we’re in Denmark after all. And the winters are long!
Is there anything to eat? If so – what’s your favorite dish on the menu?
Yes, since we have a restaurant at our hotel, we have a wonderful kitchen team that helps us out with snacks for the bar. We have the usual bar suspects such as salted almonds and olives, but also a by now quite famous Black Truffle Bikini, sort of a grilled ham and cheese toast with black truffle crème. It’s seriously addictive.
What are the distinguishing features of TATA?
Well, I think we’re quite a unique style of hotel bar in the sense that we work fairly independently from the hotel since we do walk-ins only and have our own entrance, but at the same time we’re very much involved in a lot of the things happening around the hotel. I think our high-end-low-key approach to any task sets us apart from other places, because it has turned into a mentality.
What’s that music we hear playing on the TATA stereo?
We have a music service called Music Concierge, which is a London-based company, that curates our playlists based on requests from our Creative Director and Founder, Alexander Kølpin. We usually start out with something a bit more laidback and loungey, sometimes it’s a bit jazzy or RnB-like, but as the night progresses (at least on the weekends) it turns into something a bit rowdier and upbeat. We’re always making sure the music fits with the vibe of the guests we have in the bar to ensure a good experience.
Hours:
Sunday – Wednesday: 17.00-00.00
Thursday: 17:00-01:00
Friday – Saturday: 17.00-02.00
Reservations:
TATA only takes walk-ins.
Website:
hotelsanders.com/tata-cocktail-bar
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/tatacocktailbar
Address:
Tordenskjoldsgade 15, 1055 København, Denmark