ck-99 | eSports and Cuisine

The ball bounces off the inside of the post. It's in – blimey! 0:2! Okay everyone calm down, it's just a game of Fifa. And, while your opponent is busy rejoicing, you can use the pause in the game to take a deep swig of your gin-based ck-99 Sour and take a bite out of your truffle-sprinkled pizza funghi porcini.

"The ck-99 is no aracade" says Michel Azar, "but it offers a new form of leisure." Ck-99 is what you would call an eSports bar. ESports arose in the early 2000's along with games like Counter Strike and, back then, got a pretty bad wrap. But things have changed: "We offer bowling 2.0.," says Azar, and adds that "gaming is becoming sociable."

Ck-99 has settled into a hall on the RAW terrain. A design studio took care of the interior, its original building structures were worked over but kept as authentic as possible "to maintain the charm of its surroundings," as Azar describes it. This place is far from a dark gaming cave: In the summer, the blinds are drawn up and sand is dumped in front of the door.

Countless flatscreen tvs line the walls, attached to all the newest paddles on the market. There are specially designed racing carts and computer pools – yes, gaming is the primary focus of this bar, but there's also the food. Stone baked pizza is served thin and crisp, which looks just a little off in the midst of all the high-tech equipment but tastes superb nonetheless. Even the cocktails are impressive: the signature drink, a ck-99, is mixed from dry gin, port wine, fresh grapefruit and sugar syrup. Cheers!

(mapu)