The American psychological thriller “Fight Club” ends with holding hands and the words “Everything is going to be fine, trust me”, loosely translated: “Everything will be fine”. Then a skyline full of high-rise buildings collapses and the Pixie song “Where is my mind” starts. The legendary film scene at the turn of the millennium captures an attitude to life that a quarter of a century later is called “delulu” on Tiktok and in youth language.
Delulu is short for “delusional“, so delusional. A mindset whose core is ignoring problems and dreaming into an ideal world. The Rio Bar in Haidhausen offers a perfect backdrop for this endeavor. It is located right next to the Rio Filmpalast on Rosenheimer Straße.
The three letters “Fun” shine colorfully at the entrance and the sweet smell of popcorn wafts through the glass door to the cinema. It’s about as dim as the cinema itself when the trailers for “coming soon” films and commercials for ice cream are playing. Round balls of light glow in purple and pink one evening, and in yellowish and reddish orange on others. Instead of plush red armchairs, you sit in the bar on wooden bistro chairs, which are less soft but comfortable. There are pilsners, homemade lemonades and cocktails with prices ranging from eleven to 14 euros.
In an ice-cold martini glass decorated with lemon zest, the bartender serves a Cosmopolitan, not like the mainstream has been drinking with vodka and cranberry juice since “Sex and the City”, but according to a recipe from 1934 with gin and homemade raspberry syrup. Curious, you want to try out the laminated card, which looks like an artistically designed party flyer.
Modified classics get their own flavor in the Rio Bar, for example with a little cardamom in the espresso martini or a mixture called “Ferrari” which is reminiscent of a Negroni Sbagliato. For the brave there is the “American Allstar”: bourbon, lemon, tomato and egg white. What sounds more like breakfast actually ends up being a whiskey sour in disguise. However, it is not simply served with a cocktail tomato, but rather shaken with a little ketchup and garnished with a salty potato chip on the protein foam.
The Rio Bar is as dim as the cinema itself.
(Photo: Leonhard Simon)
However, the chairs are less plush than in the neighboring cinema.
(Photo: Leonhard Simon)
An in-house creation that sounds like breakfast: The “American Allstar” made from bourbon, lemon, tomato and egg white.
(Photo: Leonhard Simon)
This was thought up by Nicolai Früchtl. In spring 2023 he took over the bar together with Anne Marx. Both are in their mid-thirties and have been friends since they were at school together in Schwabing. Marx is a graphic designer, Früchtl studied fashion design and has gastronomy experience from the now closed indie club Cord on Sonnenstrasse, the nightclub Sauna at Munich Central Station and the hip cocktail bar “Walrus” between Schanze and Kiez in Hamburg. He updates the menu with many of his own recipes every two months.
“I wanted to create a place where you feel like you’re in a movie,” says Früchtl. One by Wes Anderson. The room is decorated with a large tapestry, an heirloom from his grandmother. Next to it is an art print by Albrecht Dürer, a nature study of a brown hare – and on the other side, a stuffed marmot stretches out, forever frozen in this pose, a find from the Haidhausen court flea markets. The vintage charm is completed with retro sweets, such as chewing gum cigarettes at the counter. This aesthetic of bittersweet nostalgia is reminiscent of the Netflix film “Saltburn.” The feeling that Jacob Elordi with a glittering eyebrow piercing is about to wink across from the bar stool opposite seems to get stronger with every drink. Delulu in an arthouse look.
Rio BarRosenheimer Straße 46, 81669 Munich, telephone: 089/486979, opening hours: daily 2 p.m. to 1 a.m.