Bar Louu

Review

Aperitivo ambassadeurs

I confess, I had to google what exactly a "brand ambassador" is. It's an influencer hired by a company who uses their own social media presence to try to put the company in the spotlight as often and favorably as possible. It's amazing, but Daniel "Danny" Hubmann has this job and is apparently quite successful at it. His financial backer is the Campari group, which in recent decades has bought up virtually everything that is bitter and can be made with soda, including Aperol, Cynar, Averna and Cinzano. Hubmann and Compagnons run an aperitivo catering service, provide bitter mixed drinks on Rathausplatz, have a cocktail bar in Graz and recently took over Loup Garou. As a reminder, this was a former Polish pub opposite Berliner Döner, which at the beginning of 2022 had great ambitions to be a very good natural wine bar with excellent tapas. However, the business model was obviously not very sustainable and when the chef fell ill, Loup Garou snowflaked and closed. Last summer, there was a very fine interim use, where the food was good again and the party was pretty hard - and since last week, the small restaurant has been called Louu, has a very funny comic eye logo and, at first glance, hasn't changed that much.
At second glance, at least to the extent that there is no more food - apart from a remarkably good toast filled with Thum ham and various cheeses, which is also remarkably expensive (€ 9.50). It's a shame that there's no more cooking, but with a kitchen the size of a desk, it's probably the better solution. A whole host of interesting wines in the "natural" category are still available, but above all, of course, there are the mixed bitter liqueur drinks prepared by Felix Jugl, long-time bartender at Kleinod. These are the various aperitivo classics such as Campari, Aperol and Angostura Spritz (okay, the latter is rather exotic) as well as cocktails that are also more at home on the appetizing side. I tried a Spritz from the bitter company's apparently latest product called Sarti, a rosy blood orange liqueur that tasted somewhere between a scented tree and lip gloss (€ 8.50). The fizz with a Roibusch gin prepared by Jugl himself was more convincing, very good (€ 14.00). The atmosphere and mood at Louu are actually just as good as they were at Loup Garou. The ambitions are lower, the profit margin drastically higher, it's probably the better concept. Instead of elaborate gourmet tapas, there's toast, natural wines still and, above all, universally popular bitter cocktails. Sounds like success.

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