Beirut’s night life

BEIRUT - Julia Stuart

The Independent

February 2004

It is Saturday night and the Porsche drivers turning into Monot Street don't notice the shelled out villa on the corner. Chunks are missing as if it has been consumed by leprosy and exposed brickwork on what remains of the walls resemble scabs. The drivers join a queue of Mercedes and BMWs revving and hooting their way towards the bars and clubs, passing shops with bullet riddled shutters.

Seven years ago, Monot Street was nothing. Today, it is the hub of Beirut's nightlife, the biggest party scene in the Middle East and one that its devotees rank higher than those of New York or London. A row of 911s are already parked outside Crystal, the largest club in Lebanon, where doormen are sifting out undesirables trying to slip into its retro-chic white interior. Those beautiful enough to get in - appearance is the only criteria, you don't even have to pay - will find no dance floor, but lines of tables where the remains of dinner, an essential part of having a good time, have just been cleared away.

The furniture now serves as podiums for young men dressed in designer shirts and jeans who are hacking at the air in time to the chart music, when not on their mobile phones. They have taken the same precision over their hair and stubble as an Englishman does his lawn. The women, their long dark hair freshly blown into shapely oil slicks at the hairdresser's, are dressed in short skirts or artery restricting jeans. Some have clambered up onto the bar, others hang around waiting for attention with artificially enlarged pouts.

Crystal has managed to keep their attention since it opened seven months ago with a gimmick exploiting the vanity of some of its clientele. Whenever they buy a $3,000 nine-liter bottle of Moet & Chandon, the music stops, a spotlight is beamed onto them and an anthem is played as two waiters carry over their order. "It freezes the club for a whole 45 seconds," gloats owner, Dani Khairallah, 27. "What I am selling here is self-satisfaction.

It's all about showing off." In a final homage to their public display of excess, the club mounts their name on a board by the door.

"We're going through our yuppie stage," says Rana Ballout, 29, a journalist, rolling her eyes. "Everything is delayed here. It's all about the cars and the women. But it's a very small percentage of the population." So far, over a 100 bottles have been sold, all to Lebanese men. Three have ordered more than 20. "We have changed the production of Moet & Chandon," claims Khairallah. "By selling as many bottles as we do, they have had to produce more for Lebanon."

One wonders with the dreadful state of the economy - the national debt stands at 49 billion LP - how they can afford it. Some, it would seem, can't. "They pay it off in installments," hisses one customer. "The waiter told me." Many of those out tonight weren't born when Beirut was cool the first time around. In the '60's the capital was part of a Mediterranean circuit for rich westerners which included Monte Carlo, the French Riviera and Alexandria, earning a reputation as the Switzerland of the Middle East.

Now, however, it is most known for its brutal civil war which gripped the city from 1975 to 1989 and its notorious hostage tacking. "The war was hell on earth. I was 14 and you would go to school and never know whether you were going to come back. We lived underground during the shelling and bombing, sometimes for a whole week," says Ahmad Mansour, purchase manager at Crystal. But even a war couldn't stop Beirutis from partying. "The night life just went underground to avoid the bombs," says Tommy Tabib, manager of Pacifico, a Latin American bar/ restaurant in Monot Street. "We just used to put the music on louder, so we couldn't hear them."

It is said that venues had gun as well as coat checks. Pacifico was the first bar to open in Monot Street, in 1997, introducing the mojito to Beirut. It has since been joined by a rash of smart, stylish designer bars. Lila Braun, with its white walls and black leather seats, has a distinct metropolitan coolness. As well as a healthily long cocktail list (the waiters were trained in Germany has no-one had a clue how to make them), it serves finger food such as dried figs baked in halloumi cheese and medjool dates filled with goats cheese.

Cylindrical and with black walls, you could be inside a futuristic fuselage. Glass windows in the mental flooring enable you to see the diners below. When the fancy takes the barman, the roof slides open exposing the night's rash of stars. You could happily spend the whole evening there - with 220 different bottles of spirits behind the bar, including 25 brands of single malt whisky, you won't get bored. Au contraire. The atmosphere in the bars and clubs, none of which has a entry fee, is distinctly playful as most young middle class Beirutis know each other.

Muslims and Christians now have one thing in common - a singular determination to have a damn good time. They buy their drinks - usually vodka or whisky - by the bottle here and places stay open as long as people are buying.

Some will start their evening at one of the many pavement restaurants downtown, a 10-minute walk from Monot Street, where they are also a couple of smart clubs, Citrus and Taboo. The area is a pedestrian grid of neo-classical sandstone buildings, overly restored since the war almost to the point of sterility by a private company, part-owned by the prime minister. Preposterously clean, there is little sense of the Middle East.

It's Thursday night at Zinc, a bar in a French colonial villa which was taken by each side so many times during the war it was called the Bitch of Beirut. The lights are low, there is original art works on the wall and the music is at a volume that prevents casual conversation.

Sam, a 25-year-old financial consultant, is standing on a stool convulsing his avoirdupois to the sounds of Beyonce Knowles. He has to up in a few hours - if indeed he gets to bed.

"This is the best night life you will ever find, and I've been all over -

New York, London, Milan and Paris," he says, ordering a round of champagne and tequila slammers. "This place was part of no man's land during the war, but the only casualties now are the ones who are getting trampled on because they are too drunk. I usually spent up to $150 a night. We are shrewd business people, but when it comes to having a good time, money is the last thing on our minds. The war was so long, we feel the need to make up for lost time. I go by one expression in life ‘‘work as if you are going to live for ever and party as if you are going to die tomorrow."

But there is also another reason for people here hitting the bars with such determination.

"There is nothing else to do," explains Carol Malouf, 25, whose family owns Casper & Gambini's, a smart downtown coffeehouse and restaurant. "People don't go to the theatre and there's no dinner party culture. It's a very social country and people want to get together. The other thing is that young people don't live together until they are married and so live at home. And the women are not allowed to sleep over at their boyfriend's house, so when they go out, sure they have fun. But there's a curfew. Everyone has to be home at 4am." 

It's Friday night in BO18 an underground nightclub in an area that was once a refugee camp, which opens until 7am. Downstairs, in the funereal gloom, the floor is covered in small low tables made of smoked brown plastic and lit from the inside.

This is one of the most popular clubs in Beirut, yet it is 2.30am and virtually empty. "It hasn't started yet," the waiter explains.