We arrived one evening, looking for a place with delicious burgers on Mihai Eminescu Street, number 57A.Local I entered through a wide gate into an open courtyard shaded by a few trees lightly stripped bare at the beginning of November. A few meters from the entrance, two or three chipped steps led up to the tall door of a merchant's house, which likely first opened before the 20th century.
I stepped with slight disbelief through the small entryway and opened another white door, through which I could glimpse a room with rectangular tables neatly arranged along the walls beside "stresini" filled with magazines and good books hung at eye level for those seated.
Once past the vestibule, we found ourselves with a choice. To the right, a drawing-room with upholstered chairs, a wall-mounted bookcase locked tight, and a perforated lamp playing nonchalantly with light on the high ceiling above us. In the corner, a terracotta stove, one of many we were to encounter on our journey through lokal.
I crossed the hall to reach the room on the left, through two doors through which Gargantua would surely pass whistling. There I found the first sister of the earlier stove, white, brightly lit by a tripod lamp. A charming 1950s display case gazed intently at the long table for 12 people in front of it. A small door caught our eye and we decided to step further.
I landed right in the 1950s. In a hair salon with two comfortable armchairs, a permanent wave hood, a cassette player and stacks of cassettes with jazz and other music contemporary with the end of World War II, and a few vinyl records now used as wall decor.
Returning to the first room, we were taken aback – literally – by the ingenious eco-friendly touch devised by the locals. Two wooden planters perched directly beneath the industrial lamps housed plants that we imagine are incredibly fragrant during warmer seasons.
In the corner, a strong but silent presence: a philodendron still in its teenage years, majestically climbing a metallic fiset, guarded the opposite corner of another terracotta stove.
We've reached the heart of the house, a round room with a piano, coat rack, and people with stories ready to be told in the evening, with a cup of tea.Jasmine a ginger jar on the table. To my left, I found the source of inspiration: a bar, industrial in style, with sturdy high stools and bottles meticulously arranged on aged shelves.
On the other side were three more rooms, one of which looked like a small secretary's anteroom. We almost imagined Christina Hendricks filming an episode here from one of Mad Men's earlier seasons. Tradition was upheld; a small terracotta stove caught our eye here as well.
The same atmosphere prevailed in the last two rooms, where words danced around laden plates and sparkling rosé wine in glasses.
