Going down the sweet and soft way

By Millicent Muthoni

Clubs, usually, are for hopping in and out of unless they are locals that demand loyalty. Dolce, the club is situated in Cianda House and is a cosy and exotic club where patrons are members. When you go down to Dolce (literally, because it’s the only underground club in Nairobi), you will be struck by the attention paid to acoustic and aesthetic details. Dolce thus holds your attention and the noise inside.

Patrons enjoy a drink at the main counter. Photo: Maxwell Agwanda/Standard

All you feel as you descend to the reception are tickling vibrations from the wooden floor underfoot if the main door to the club is not open. The elaborate soundproof door made of wood and covered in brown padded leather serves as the earplug to the club. Inside the club, walls are equally clad. Wall couches and bar stools are upholstered in spongy dark-red leather. Tabletops and seat backs are fashioned in wood polished to a shiny black and finished with ornately modelled edges to give a dainty look.

Something for everyone

The dance floor is paved with aluminium plates and the reflections of the action caught in the wall-to-wall mirrors. Metal plates hanging from the ceiling by the dance floor play with the psychedelic party light and clang as the club pulsates with music and dance. The walls are lined with couches that hug small booths of space. And therein lies the magic of Dolce; tens of little enclaves of space where as few as two people and as many as 12 can have a private meeting in the crowd. This is helped by the fact that the club is dimly lit.

Dolce has something for everyone. There is a dining room where tables are set up for dinner, a game room for those who love to shoot pool and an interactive sitting space around the dance floor. There are also three well supplied bar counters as well as pockets of intimate spaces hidden behind either shoulder-length partitions of glass fixed in wood and lined with gold-plated bars.

The 19 years of existence are beginning to show in the cracking seat covers, scratched tops and gaping joints but Dolce is still a cut above the rest as a destination of choice for diplomats and the working class of the city.