Naked for Satan

I think this review is inaccurate and doesn't do justice to the pedigree of the bar. It's sad that you can write off such a large financial and cultural endeavour with your short and unsweet review. People take large risks to bring you an experience and this is how you write your review? It's a shame no one is more critical of your writing. J

Posted on Thu 08 Dec 2011 03:05:50

I went there today for the first time and thought it was brilliant! Naked For Satan has really brought Spain to Melbourne. And I disagree with Katherine...as in any forum, I think Max is entitled to correct any inaccuracies and put forth his opinion, just as the writer is entitled to. His argument is perfectly reasonably and justified without being aggressive or irrational. Honestly, I thought the insight to their management processes/decisions was really interesting.

Posted on Sun 24 Jul 2011 23:36:45

Is this really Time Out or "Days of our Lives"? - or an attempt to be part of The Comedy Festival. First Gemima writes a semi scathing report on a new bar. The conclusion she arrived at was based on some inaccuracies according to Bernard. Bernard is from the "old country" but Jean reckons Bernard is really "on the staff" Max is definitely on the staff, in fact, he owns the bar and he is really upset with Gemima's inaccurate reporting. He counters her attack in a rather long winded fashion. This upsets Katherine, who has never been to the bar but is so emotionally scarred by Max's long windedness that she vows she'll never go to this bar because of that. (She's obviously a friend of Gemima) Oh for goodness sake Time Out, can we do without this boring dribble and get back to real information about restaurants. I click on to your site in expectation of an accurate report of a venue, not to catch the next unexciting episode of a boring "Bitch Fight".

Posted on Fri 29 Apr 2011 17:38:22

I thought the review was quite positive and having never been here before thought it made the bar sound like an interesting and fun place to visit. There are always going to be positive and negative points about a bar, and if the reviewer decides to include an example of both then I, as a possible customer, applaud that. However, after reading the comments posted by readers I am disappointed that Max the owner of Naked for Satan felt the need to reply with such an exaggerated complaint about the review. His relentless, drawn out barrage of justification for some minor negative comments was exhausting and left me thinking that he is not someone I would be happy to hand my money to. The bar is still somewhere I would like to visit but I’m sorry Max, too much justification is never a good thing and you’re comment has unfortunately talked me out of going to your bar.

Posted on Tue 19 Apr 2011 12:47:40

Are we talking about the same place? It took us a long time to get to this bar. We read your review and decided that this place was not for us. Just another try-hard bar. How boring. Then, to our surprise, we saw it was awarded "Bar of the Year" in Cheap Eats So last night, with very little food in the house, we decided to check it out. Our conclusion: Cheap Eats was right. It's a great bar, and we feel your description of it has done us an injustice. We could have been going there months ago. Jan and Lee

Posted on Tue 22 Mar 2011 01:49:23

9 out of 10 - Naked for Satan Not a lot out of 10 - This review How could anyone writing about this place not mention how sexy it is. The soft lighting, the warm colours, the sensitive renovation that hasn't transformed this beautiful old space into some cold hi tech bar. Neither has it taken the easy road, that so many do today, by raiding the local op shop and turning it into yet another grunge venue. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble, and expense I would imagine, to put this place together, yet, the writer is more concerned about slagging them for having a doorman, than telling us just how beautiful this bar actually is. Similarly the writer has criticised the drinks list by saying they are stock standard with fancy names. I wonder if she has actually tried them. I have, and I would hardly describe them as stock standard. Again someone has gone to a lot of trouble to put what's on offer together, and done it well, the drinks are good. I think the writer has missed a lot here. Overall, a very disappointing review. .......and No.......before you accuse me too, I'm not on the staff !

Posted on Sun 27 Feb 2011 10:38:33

I am one of the owners of Naked for Satan. I was thrilled to be included in your website, but, with all due respect, disappointed by some of your comments. I must admit I love your writing style, but with all due respects again, some of your facts are wrong and if you consider the principles of parallax, there is another way of interpreting what you saw. Allow me to explain things from our point of view. 1) "The doorman" A bar like ours really shouldn't need to have" a doorman". It's expensive and can send out the wrong message. Unfortunately though, being in Brunswick street, there are times when security is a necessity. The liquor licensing laws at the moment make it illegal for a venue to have an intoxicated person on the premisses. So what happens throughout a busy night in Brunswick Street, is that bouncers at pubs and nightclubs keep throwing out "drunks" wanting to keep drinking, the ejected patrons look for another watering hole. We had a nightmare night in our early days, where a group of celebrating/commiserating footy players who had been thrown out of a pub up the road, descended on our then unguarded entrance, started grabbing the food and throwing it around. Then they started hassling a group of girls sitting close by. When our staff tried to intervene, the group of drunken men turned on the staff making abusive remarks about the staff's sexual preferences (those particular members of my staff were gay). I'm sorry you find the doorman offensive, but I have an obligation of safety to my customers (65-70% of my customers happen to be women. I'm sure you must understand that they do not want to be hassled by drunks) and my staff who are employed to serve drinks, not be bouncers. It's got nothing to do with a dress code. We don't care if people come in their pyjamas or a wedding dress. You probably looked at the doorman dressed in his/her suit and "judged a book by its cover". Perhaps that may have set a tone in your mind for what else you experienced. When we first employed them, it was jeans and T-shirt, but quite honestly, they looked like thugs at a night club, so we thought dressing up was less intimidating. It was not meant as a message about a dress code. 2) Regarding the pintxos. You spoke of teething problems because 16 pintxos were too many and perhaps 6 would be a better number. Wow, that would be so easy, but not the experience we are trying to offer. Believe it or not, we actually have over 60 but only serve 33 on any one night/day. 20 sit on the counter and another 12-14 are hot and circulated by waiters. I totally understand how you think some "sit in sad abandonment" and thus have lost there freshness. In reality however, what you didn't see is that each platter holding the pintos, is marked at the back with a colour coded sticker that tells the barman and the food monitor how long it has been there. We have a system in place, and a food monitor who takes away pintxos that approach 'sitting there too long'. Perhaps you saw a large platter with 2 or 3 pintxos next to one that was full. I agree, they would have looked sad, unwanted and stale, but quite honestly they weren't. I say this because we turn over more than 4,000 pintxos a day and we don't have time to penny pinch and hang on to any thing that looks or is bordering on stale. We get rid of it. By the way, not trying to be smart, but the wagyu is not salami. It's actually thin slices of wagyu beef. The anchovy / pickled pepper / olive "kebab" you spoke of, is a famous Basque dish called, Gilda. It was named in honour of Rita Hayworth (as it was one of her favourite pintxos) when she was filming the movie Gilda, in the Basque country 50 years ago. You should also know that the smoked salmon is not the frozen supermarket type, but rather salmon bought fresh and smoked every day or other day, as needed. We really go to a lot of trouble with the food and at $2 it's a bargain. At 50 cents it's a steal. 3) Trying too hard with the drinks. Yes. I see how it may appear that way, but because we make a few of the standard cocktails in a non standard way, we didn't want to upset customers expectations by giving them our version of what they asked for without some kind of warning, so we renamed those few drinks to be in line with most of the other cocktails and mixed drinks that we've made up. An example of this is that in our version of a Bloody Mary (our name - Bloody Satan), the vodka we use has been infused with garlic and chillies for 12 weeks. (not your regular Bloody Mary) Similarly the other "standard" drinks have all been made in a non standard way using non standard vodkas that have herbs and/or fruit and/or flower infusions. Perhaps too subtle and trivial for you, but yes, we have tried very hard with the drinks, and on the most part, the feed back has been positive. The point is that we are a bar that features Infused Vodkas and we go to a lot of trouble to do so. Thank you for saying we are a fun concept and that we are inexpensive, but your comment about us finding the market we are looking for is a bit of a put down. We are not looking for any kind of specific market. I think you have really misjudged what we are about. We are a bar that provides inexpensive food. Like thousands of bars in Spain, we do so as an attraction and to stop people from getting too drunk. That's all we are. That's all we want to be. And like the bars in Spain, we don't care who comes in. We are for everyone. Not just the Cool or the Jet set or what ever the "In Crowd" is called these days. If you came in to our bar at lunchtime (Monday to Friday), you will see grandparents at one table, mothers with prams at another, students at the next, etc. etc......and no doorman. There is no specific market that we are looking for. So maybe if you don't find our existence too offensive, try us out again. Maybe your view of us will metamorphose into something more acceptable. I mean that in the nicest way. Max

Posted on Tue 15 Feb 2011 12:23:42

I don't think this review does the place justice. It is so much more of an exciting and cool experience than what is described. How cheap it is, especially at lunch times and the inside interesting decor have been neglected too. Plus the photo above does not do it justice, you should have used a better photo to show off how cool it is inside.

Posted on Mon 31 Jan 2011 12:07:12

Its pretty obvious Bernard is on the staff. I think the opinion was fair and just and doesn't warrant a reprimand for an honest appraisal. I share similar sentiments about the food often sitting out for periods when the staff are preoccupied with more pressing matters. They aren't removed regularly enough and often loose the cute appeal that they are looking for. I do disagree with Gemima about the drinks 'trying to hard' however. Anywhere that regards a twisted cosmopolitan worthy of a menu clearly isn't trying hard enough. Don't these guys look after Bimbos as well? Why go with more infused vodka? Surely it's doing fine down there. Maybe they should bring in the $4 pizza as well. Then maybe i'd go back.

Posted on Fri 14 Jan 2011 16:58:46

Well written article but what a shame you didn't understand your experience and got it so wrong. The 19 (not 16 offerings) Don't actually sit there in abandonment. I have watched the staff constantly turnover platter after platter while I wait in frustration for the dish I want to repeat on. I am from the Basque country and am ecstatic that some one here has had the guts to do something so foreign to them that has been so well received by everyone except the one person that is talented in writing but doesn't really understand the concept that they are writing about. Even your comment about the drinks trying too hard is wrong, they have put a Basque twist(added an extra ingredietnt or two) to what you think are stock standard cocktails. It is a shame you are not more encouraging( rather than tall poppy cutting) when someone sticks their neck out to keep the scene in Australia as vibrant as what's happening elsewhere in the world.

Posted on Tue 11 Jan 2011 09:52:39