Planning on entertaining important clients in the UK? The options just got much more exciting…
A choice nugget of automotive folklore involves a reckless bet by Woolf Barnato – the hard-partying diamond-heir socialite who purchased Bentley Motors in 1926. Barnato wagered £100, during a mostly liquid dinner at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, that he could set off in his 6½ Litre Bentley Speed Six parked outside and reach Dale Bourne’s club in St James’s, London, before Le Train Bleu even managed to reach Calais from roughly the same starting point.
Were Mr Barnato to make that journey today, he may be tempted to press on a further 180 miles north-west, and resume his revelries in a space, nestling next to the Green Room at Co-op Live Manchester, which the marque he once owned has converted into a place where brand superfans and their guests can enjoy the most exclusive music venue experience in the world.
The Bentley Record Room, which accommodates a total of 100 guests, has been designed by the in-house team to echo the cosseting, aesthetically refined tenets of being inside a Bentley car (whilst also taking into account acoustic and performance enhancement factors, as warm-up acts take place within these illustrious confines). Private, after-concert mini-gigs are a distinct possibility for certain clients, in a venue-within-a-venue which has names such as Stevie Nicks, Kings of Leon and Paul McCartney all its the forthcoming schedule.
Curated dining options with private host and waiting services, including dedicated arrival and private entrance, are also on the cards. And it’s difficult to think of a better way to impress clients who are aficionados of luxury motoring. “When it comes to automotive aesthetics, the key focal point is the main bar, where the shelving unit was directly inspired by the grille of the Bentley Batur: just a simplified execution,” Chris Cooke – Head of Design Collaborations at Bentley Motors – tells Robb Report Monaco & Côte d’Azur.
“It was about distilling down the essence of the grille into a simple constructible form which could be repeated and beautifully display the finest drinks. Secondly we utilised the quilting pattern from the new GT into a 3 dimensional diamond that enable sound to be broken when it passes into it, this can be seen in the ceiling and VIP zone spaces and maximises the sound experience.”
As with Bentley vehicles, it’s the finer details that male up a glorious whole. “The bar top is a beautiful Patagonia marble, one of our Bentley Home finishes – and available to spec on certain home pieces – selected for its veining detailing and colour which bought out the tones within the room,” explains Cooke.
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