Sebb’s is changing the concept of basement bars in Glasgow

We visit Sebb’s, the new basement bar on Miller Street from the owners of renowned restaurants Margo, Ox and Finch and Ka Pao.

Transcript

00:00This is SEBS. It is a bar located beneath Margo on 68 Miller Street.

00:06So SEBS stands for 68 Basement Bar.

00:09It is really kind of trying to break the mould of what a basement bar would be.

00:13You've got a really good food offering where we are showcasing food over fire.

00:17We've got a dedicated cocktail kitchen as well which is showpiecing using unique equipment.

00:22We've got a centrifuge which quite frankly normally gets used for

00:28splitting blood in medical purposes but we can use it for for drinks purposes where we're changing

00:34what we can do within that and doing things like cocktails that are like say milk punches which

00:39typically take 10-12 hours to make. We can do them in 45 minutes because you've got the equipment to

00:44do that as well. It's been great. We've been open for 10 weeks now. It has opening just before

00:50Christmas which was great for us. It meant that effectively every day was a Saturday and the word

00:56of mouth has really kind of helped push that into the new year as well where we're still

01:00absolutely jam-packed at the weekends. We're still getting full like kind of settings throughout the

01:05week as well so January hasn't been as quiet as most places would say you know.

01:11The concept came from Jonathan and Daniel, our directors, and what they really wanted was

01:15they're bread and butter. They are chefs and they wanted to create something that's a bit more

01:20unique to not only just Glasgow city centre but like just in general kind of taking inspiration

01:28from like the decor is quite American diner-esque where we've got big booths you've got the kind of

01:32red leather pots of coffee kicking about things like that but then also on top of that like with

01:37the menus as well we wanted to kind of elevate it and take inspiration from cocktail bars in Paris,

01:44New York. Because it's in a basement and there isn't really much signage for it, it does kind

01:49of give that speakeasy element to it. It's not a speakeasy, it's in a basement that's all it is.

01:57I think the really key thing that we were trying to drive here is a unique experience where

02:03it's not just about the foods and the drinks which is what you can get and there are thousands of

02:08venues, licensed premises in Glasgow. It's a curated experience around food, drink and music.

02:14Danny who's the head chef, his real love is food over fire and cooking with

02:18coal fire so that was kind of one of the main things that we were kind of, that's an initial

02:23focal point and then for us the drinks program what we wanted to do was make it, I call it the

02:31rule of Sam. It's seasonal, approachable and minimalistic. We looked at what was around here

02:37and there was quite a lot of, there's a lot of cocktail bars in the Glasgow city centre

02:41and a lot of them are doing things that are quite maximalist. We want to kind of, well actually

02:46that's not what we want to do, we want to showcase what the liquid in the glass is and really kind

02:50of push that. All our wine is on tap, having wines come through in keg means we're shipping

02:54a lot less glass, so much better for the environment.