LV Café & Lounge – Guangzhou

On the 4 block walk from my office to my apartment, I came across a small bar that has become a sort of watering hole for me. On nights that I am stuck late at work I will usually stop by there on the way home for a cold beer and a shot of tequila. That combination works like a nitro booster when I need a pick me up.

LV Café & Lounge is not a fancy joint. The area it is located in has a few Chinese restaurants which are really good and a couple of local karaoke bars, but as far as I can tell there is not much of an expatriate crowd in the area. This bar however does appeal to foreign tastes. There is a small bar with stools and a few tables on the ground floor.

It is primarily a wine and cigar bar and the décor of LV Café is centered on that theme. One wall is lined with elegant wine goblets on wooden stands. Beneath each glass is a piece of engraved metal with a persons name on it. I assuming these are all for regular customers, although I am usually the only person there.

LV Café is also an importer of wine from Chile, France, and Australia. They keep an extensive variety in stock and also switch around the house wine so regulars who do not want to open full bottles can still get a bit of variety for their palettes.

The bar is also extremely well stocked with large variety of liquors and the menu boast more than a handful of mixed cocktails and shooter. I have not had the opportunity to test the skills of the resident bartender but I have enjoyed 3 separate varieties of Tequila. They also have a respectable selection of scotch and bourbon.

Apart from importing wine LV Café also import cigars. They even showed me a photo album where the owner, a Chinese woman, was in a cigar factory in Cuba! Very cool. I am not much of a cigar smoker myself but since I quit smoking cigarettes 4 weeks ago I have smoked a cigar, twice. It would not be something I do very often but I could enjoy one every once in a while.

Being a small bar, LV Café has done a really good job with the décor, on a budget. It is obvious that they have not spent loads of cash to fix up the place but small attention to detail has created a pretty characteristic atmosphere.

The lighting in the bar is dim and subtle. The flash on my Sony Cyber Shot makes things look way too bright, also I am not really thrilled about the photo quality but it is easy to carry around. Like I said before, I find the bar to have loads of character but yet it is very simple. It is the perfect place to land after a long day at work. There is nothing pretentious about it. The sad part is that I have yet to be there when there are other customers.

There is also this huge ass TV where they can show whatever you want to watch on local TV. The staffs in the bar are exceptionally friendly. After 8 there are usually 3 very pretty and talkative waitresses hanging around who have been very helpful expanding my Chinese vocabulary. It is a great place to stop after work and I am actually quite happy that it is never too crowded. But I am optimistic that I will run into some very unique characters there one day soon.