When I arrive, Bjørn, whom I am here to meet, is putting candles on the tables. I sit down at the bar and unpack my stuff, and as he returns to the bar he uncorks a beer and takes the first sip of the day - well deserved. “Can I get you anything?” He says smiling. Bjørn Severin who has been the bar manager at the bar for about 5 years describes the bar as deliberately casual, as he pours my draught beer and finishes it with a perfect head. You can tell he masters the underestimated art of pouring beer. I like that.
As my eyes scan the bar, they are met by an intense amount of dark brown wood bathed in incandescent golden lights. The walls are draped with dark green tapestry and old pictures which reminds me of excerpts from my grandmother’s photo album. Time has taken its toll on the images and the analogue film light leaks lends a distinct sense of history to the bar, and yet there is something subliminally modern about this place.
The older version of Scala, which can be seen on the images, had been a mainstay in the now quite modern restaurant street of Ravnsborggade since the late seventies, and was one of the last brown pubs in the street, when the new owners took over 6 years ago. Before that, the couple Arne and Irene had been running the place for more than three decades, which was beginning to show in the nooks and crannies of the old bar, as time and cigarette smoke had coated it in grime.
