Bar La Fête Talks Design, Wine, and Manifesting Experience-Centric Dining in the Magic City

For Kristen Hall and Victor King, dining isn’t just about what’s on the plate — it’s also about the experience and growing comfortable within a space. This philosophy prevails abroad and in major American food cities, but it hasn’t quite made its way to Birmingham. The pair’s most recent project, Bar La Fête, takes a step towards manifesting a more developed restaurant experience in the Magic City.

“We approach building restaurants and designing spaces as what we would want to have, what we want to do, what we enjoy, and what we feel like Birmingham needs,” Hall says. “I mean, we love pizza too, but we’re probably not gonna open up a pizza restaurant. When it becomes time for a new project to be born, if no one else has done it [in Birmingham], then we decide this is the next project we’re gonna do.”

The duo have a running list of concepts, but landed on a wine bar that emanates the vibe found in New York or Paris. “You can come and grab a quick glass and some olives if you wanted to, but you can always just stay for a long time and enjoy yourself just in the space,” Hall says.

After signing a lease on the space in Mercantile on Morris, they went to Paris for research. They visited restaurants and bars, snapping photos to send to the architect. Parisian wine bars own their identities — when a customer walks in, it’s clear they’re a wine bar right when they come through the door. Hall and King aimed to balance that aesthetic with the logistics of a restaurant, while also creating a venue that felt timeless.

Bar La Fête achieved that sense through softness. Hall and King gravitated towards curves and radius edges, reducing the amount of corners and harsh edges. Inspired by a sheet of House of Hackney wallpaper (which at one point Hall carried everywhere), they struck for a palette with masculine and feminine hues.

The result is a space that feels like it’s been around forever. Bright pink peonies are balanced with olive green walls and touches of midnight blue. Custom-made olive cabinets by Blackshop Bham house hundreds of bottles, immediately greeting patrons and establishing Bar La Fête’s identity. Marble bar and tabletops refract natural light and enliven the subdued shades. Much like the Mercantile on Morris development, Bar La Fête feels natural, almost like it’s grown out of the earth.

The 1st Avenue location is convenient — it’s adjacent to the new home for Bandit, the patisserie Hall started in 2013, and a quick walk from The Essential, which Hall and King opened in 2017. But Morris on Mercantile, and Morris itself, emits a distinct aura. Thanks to Mercantile’s retail space size, smaller operations have a better chance of securing a brick-and-mortar location.

“One of the challenges [of Birmingham real estate is] that most of the spaces are really large, so if you were just starting out with a smaller concept, especially on the retail side, it’s kind of hard to be able to find a space that has good foot traffic but also reasonable rent in a small space,” Hall says.

Bar La Fête’s menu consists of small, shareable plates and an extensive wine list. The fare is ideal for those wanting to familiarize themselves with French foods and technique, but it also caters to those with an existing penchant for the cuisine — and, of course, wine.

“We would hope that if you’ve never had a glass of wine in your life, that you could come here and feel comfortable,” Hall says. “Or, if you had a lot of experience in wine and really wanted to nerd out on a Burgundy list, you can also do that.”

Hall and King already knew which wines work well with food and conceptualized a “menu ideal list” including 60-plus items. “It’s all things that represent what we do here. Really just picking wine that represents all of France but also just is a good representation of the world,” King says.

The menu also represents the relationships that Hall and King have made with growers, farmers, and suppliers, and amplifies their work.

“Lots of the wines are actually people that we’ve met right in,” Hall says. “Establishing relationships with them has been very cool, to sort of just be an advocate for the work that they do. We buy these things. They make them. When you walk in here, yes, it’s our work, but those cabinets are friends’ work and all of the wine that is in here is the work of really beautiful, dedicated, amazing people.”

That team of amazing people, of course, includes Bar La Fête’s employees. Hall says that she and King aim to build a team of people who share their ethos concerning food and hospitality. And a major part of maintaining that cadre is treating employees well.

“Our goal is to be able to provide a career for people,” Hall says. “We lose a lot of people to the service industry because there’s no health insurance and there’s no time off and you’re basically a pawn in the game of that restaurant. We offer 2 weeks of paid time off for all of our employees. I think we still have a lot of work to do, but to be able to interview and hire people, pay them well, treat them well, and that sort of exudes [in] the work that they do.