A Night at Cliff Barnes

Cliff Barnes: a well-known character on the show Dallas and a not-so-well-known restaurant and bar in Stockholm. On Friday night, I organized some colleagues to check out the latter, namely the dancing on chairs that happens late in the evening.

Above was the view from my chair, that is, from standing on my chair. Standing on chairs - and sometimes even tables (although the list of rules/FAQs says this is a no-go) - is the norm at Cliff Barnes while singing to a variety of tunes between the hours of 11pm and 1am. The building, which resembles an old school, was actually a home for widows. What better place for a bar?

We started with drinks and moved on to dinner, selected from a particularly unusual menu with items such as grisotto (a combination of grits and risotto, I assume), American brisket, and porkchop with pig cracklings. I had red snapper with fried soft-shell crab, which was good, although a bit too fishy for my taste. Topped off with dessert: popcorn ice cream with brownie and fudge sauce. The ice cream tasted surprisingly like popcorn, although also like burnt vanilla. And the fudge sauce was far too little. 

At 11pm, the lights were dimmed, the long, red-velvet curtains were drawn, and the music was turned up - dance time! We chair-top danced to our hearts' content, and then some. 2 hours later, we stumbled out, feet aching and fun songs replaying in our heads. I think I fell asleep to Livin' on a Prayer.