Jake Saunders, Editor at large
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital with the funny name and the even trickier climate, hides small surprises. One of them is in UB City: the Habanos cigar lounge you would never expect.
At the entrance, the first clue: a lovely outdoor area, almost Mediterranean in feel, where you can sit down, light a cigar, relax and watch the world go by. Not something you often find here. That alone is enough to make a traveler with pockets full of lighters and limited time smile.
Inside, the mood shifts: no grandiosity, but intamacy and proportion. There’s a small walk-in humidor with a modest selection: Habanos, yes, but not the showpiece vitolas. Rather the “younger brothers,” alongside some cigars from the so-called new world. Not a disappointment at all rather an invitation to try, to mix, to satisfy a curiosity.
Then, the surprise within the surprise: one, two, three smoking rooms, furnished with armchairs as comfortable as confessionals. Here people smoke, chat, and watch the smoke rise slowly, almost philosophically. A discreet bar corner serves what you need: from Scotch whisky to Cuban rum. But the real eye-catcher is the wine selection.
UB City is not about flashy Montecristo and Cohiba, not about ostentation. It is an urban refuge, in a city that runs, jostles, surprises. An elegant parenthesis, a place where smoking isn’t just consuming a cigar but allowing yourself a piece of time — and of the world — suspended between the steppe and Havana.
