The ice bar is back. Should it be?, Canada Reviews

Two cubes of ice stand on Copenhagen’s busiest shopping street, melting into the pavement next to the Swatch shop. Grooves between the paving slabs are shiny with water, as if someone has dropped a drink or a dog has relieved itself. Occasionally, people stop to look at the sign, guarded by a uniformed man, that says: Icebar by Icehotel Copenhagen, Opening Soon. But most people walk straight past. Having since paid a visit, I can tell you they’re doing the right thing. 

Lots of things that were popular 20 years ago have been returned from the dead this year, the Gallagher brothers’ bank balances and Lily Allen’s relevance included. I’m all for a return to the times when drinking and clubbing were fun. But an ice bar in 2025? I have questions. 

The first ice bar was created 30 years ago as part of the iconic Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. It opened in 1994, complete with glasses made from ice. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, a string of branded Icebar by Icehotel spots popped up in Stockholm, London, Copenhagen and beyond, all using ice shipped in from Jukkasjärvi. Times changed, copycat ice bars came and went, until just one original Icebar by Ice Hotel in Stockholm remained. Until now. In November, Ice Hotel opened a new ice bar in Copenhagen and plans to open another in London. 

In the three decades since the first ice bar, we’ve gained some new associations around melting ice. In 2018, artist Olafur Eliasson placed 100 tonnes of ice from the Greenland Sea in front of Tate Modern in London to highlight the climate crisis.

It’s difficult, for me, to think of ice without a vague association of rising sea levels and starving polar bears. How will the new-look ice bar handle the issue? Perhaps with a storytelling about the majesty of ice and our need to protect it? Maybe this ice temple will make us want to see more of it in person, or to really appreciate it, having touched it? Let’s take a tour and find out.

I enter to find a small holding room with a DJ in the corner and a bar. It appears to have been designed by the same interior designer as all the tourist trap shops in Copenhagen: deer antlers, cheap pine shelving and a selection of branded beanies. The place has all the charm of a laser quest party on a Monday afternoon. The DJ is playing ‘Ice, Ice Baby’. 

‘The place has the charm of a laser quest party on a Monday afternoon’

We’re offered navy blue capes with a white fur hood to put on and fleece gloves, and are then allowed to enter the back room, where all the ice is kept. The ice was shipped all the way down from Swedish Lapland to Copenhagen on trucks and is kept in a refrigerated room at -5C. It’s around the same temperature as you’ll find in Copenhagen on a cold winter night.

The bar is already full of influencers taking selfies. I look up to see, no, not a projection of the northern lights flickering across the low ceiling, but square black panels, reminding me of an office I used to hate working in. At the bar, the staff are a bit confused about the cocktail list. I pick one called Winter, which has sea buckthorn, nutmeg, orange and chocolate in it. Next to me, a girl asks the barman: ‘But what’s actually in it, what alcohol?’ He’s not sure.   

I take my cocktail, served in a glass made of ice. When I’ve drunk it, the barman directs me to a wall up some metal stairs where I slot in the ice glass and it slides down a slope into a plastic bin. The top of the bin is covered with a swirling ice sculpture that reminds me of a flushing toilet, but you can still see the black plastic underneath it. It lands with an empty thump.

Then it’s back down to the main room, which lacks any kind of energy at all. There’s something to say about the walls and the ice carvings, but not much. I quite like the ice wall pocked with air bubbles and circular shapes. It is spoiled by the host standing next to it who forgets that I have eyes and lectures me about how amazing it all is. After about 20 minutes, I’m relieved to leave. 

‘Where’s the awe of the Arctic, the delight in nature?’

This is the greatest example of the tourism that we don’t want, don’t need and aren’t asking for. It’s just a backdrop for a photo that makes you look like you’re being intrepid, while all you’re doing is drinking an overpriced drink in a backroom freezer pretending to be somewhere else. I say this as someone who loves the Arctic and knows what the magic up there feels like: where’s the awe of the Arctic, the delight in nature? The pine scent, the breathtaking light, the sounds of arctic birds? Where’s the thinking around why we should care about ice and want to protect it? The prevailing attitude seems to be: nobody cares, let’s just take a selfie. 

But I do care, and I think I’m not the only one. We have to do better. Hospitality is about more than gimmicks and taking cash from tourists who don’t know any better. Go to Ruby and drink one of their award-winning cocktails instead, and you’ll still have change from the 250kr entry fee. Give this place the cold shoulder.

Recommended: 20 actually great things to do in Copenhagen

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