Ellington Bar in Düsseldorf: Drinks from the problem area – love of home

Chef Robert Potthoff is the first to arrive and gradually switches on the dim lamps on the tables and the piano. The neon sign glows behind the counterEllington“. The bar is named after the jazz-Size Duke Ellington. Since 1999, trendy people and night owls have been meeting in the bar in Düsseldorf. One to the best New Yorker Prototype: leather chair, chilly Music, good Drinks.

The boss has his Work in the old town to dedicate himself to this shop. That was 15 years ago. He knows death Ellington Bar as a guest and liked the place straight away. “I wanted to talk the then owner into two chairs because I thought they were so beautiful.”remembers Potthoff. The owner didn’t accept it. “15 years later all the chairs were mine”he says with a grin.

Düsseldorf: Life around the Ellington Bar is “sometimes tragic”

In Düsseldorf’s old town they have the longest bar in the world. 260 pubs, restaurants and bars are lined up under old buildings with colorful facades. The streets around the Ellington Bars quickly seem like a parallel world. 400 meters from the main train station, love hotel next door, sexBusiness two houses away, prostitution and drug scene on the doorstep. Potthoff takes it calmly: “A wild corner, still.” A regular guest gets more specific: “Junkies with the syringe in the arm in house entrances, stabbings, street prostitution. Potthoff has experienced a lot here. The wildest story? “It’s not suitable for young people”says the 60-year-old and shakes his bald head.

Scheurenstrasse, where the bar is located, even appeared in a list of streets and squares in 2020 that, according to the Ministry of the Interior, were classified as “dangerous and disreputable” apply. fur barkeeper Björn Waldeck, the neighborhood also has its own charm: “We experience the district here up close. Extremely exciting, sometimes tragic, sometimes difficult to bear. But always colorful.” There is almost never any stress in the store, he says: “We’ll get along.“

Creative drinks with herbs and spices

Potthoff’s handwriting can only be recognized at second glance. Extra hard ice, a dash of fantasy and fresh herbs in a glass. Die Drinks come with dill, spruce needles, roasted thyme, pink pepper or green pepper. There is hardly any decoration and when there is, it is edible. “We don’t put any bells and whistles on the glasses here.”“That’s important to the barman. Only at.” hurricane They make an exception with rum and passion fruit. However, the small paper umbrella ends up being blown by the wind and turned upside down in the glass.

Potthoff has been working in nightlife for 35 years. As barkeeper He is a host and a grief box and all of this goes against the biorhythm. He looks very healthy. How does the man endure this? “I get up at 6:15 a.m., do gymnastics, drink green tea, eat my cereal. I no longer smoke, drink very little to hardly any alcohol and ride my bike a lot.” In addition, he is no longer in the shop every evening; the really hard times are over.

The Düsseldorfer leafs through memory albums with a loving look. Words of gratitude, lots of lipstick kisses on paper, little works of art. Autographs or celebrity photos? None. Are there any famous guests? “Clear”comes promptly from Potthoff. Then he raises his left eyebrow and grins: “But before that barkeeper are all the same.

We also reported on this topic on November 22nd, 2024 on WDR television: Local time from Düsseldorf7:30 p.m.