Feature: A Feast for the Eyes

Samantha Brooks

11/01/2004

On a winter evening in 1981, La Coupole opened its doors in New York–but not to Andy Warhol. Restaurant openings are typically chaotic affairs, but the added complication of an unexpected snowstorm wreaked so much havoc that the pop culture icon was turned away. The snub made headlines, but that only helped to cement La Coupole’s overnight success.

“It was the first large-scale restaurant that had great design,” recounts Adam Tihany, who created La Coupole’s interiors. “It got a lot of attention and became instantly popular.” The restaurant’s overnight success prompted Tihany, who had not yet committed his career to commercial or residential design, to make a quick decision. “Soon after, I put ‘Restaurant Designer’ on my office door,” he says. Tihany is now a member of an elite club of restaurant designers whose names are as recognizable as the world’s top chefs.

Shibuya at the MGM Grand, by Yobu Pushelberg, mixes technology and nature, with wood screens by artist Hirotoshi Shawda. (Click image to enlarge)

While the average lifespan of a New York restaurant is two years, food is only one of many ingredients factored into the success equation. “Restaurants have become a destination on their own and it’s not just because people are hungry,” says Gamal Aziz, president of Las Vegas’ MGM Grand hotel and casino. By the end of 2004, MGM’s cache of restaurants–from four-star headliners to casual restaurants and sophisticated sandwich shops–will total 16, all decorated by top designers. “Food and beverage profits have more than doubled in the last three years,” Aziz says. “MGM’s are now at over $220 million.” These days, dining by design is more important than ever.

A new caliber of clientele is being seduced by the dynamic combination of a star chef and top designer. Thomas Keller was temporarily lured away from his landmark restaurant, the French Laundry, long enough to set up shop in Manhattan’s new Time Warner Center with the design aid of Tihany. Per Se, the East Coast’s answer to Keller’s Napa Valley dining establishment, is the sixth collaboration in six years for the twosome. “I consider myself a custom tailor who makes restaurants to fit my clients,” Tihany says. “For anyone who knows Thomas, they can immediately see that Per Se is a portrait of the chef.”

The Butler Dining Room at NoMI seats 16. (Click image to enlarge)

Dominated by dark bog oak wainscoting and accented by marble countertops and floors, and a stone and glass fireplace, Per Se is a study in contrasts. The focal point of the tailored, contemporary dining room is a handcarved abstract wall sculpture made of French oak, leather and steel. The resulting atmosphere–elegant, sophisticated and serene with 16 luxuriously spaced tables overlooking Central Park–is, says Tihany, “complex and private.”

While Per Se’s arrival has added to the prestige of Time Warner Center, which will house five fine-dining establishments by the end of 2005, the concept of building a restaurant as a destination spot has been flourishing in Las Vegas as well. “There is essentially pre-Bellagio, where people were fed so that they could gamble, and post-Bellagio, where hotels have realized that restaurants are a huge part of the business themselves,” says Aziz, who was formerly president of Bellagio’s food and beverage division when the resort opened in 1998.

Understanding the importance of fine interior design, Aziz is now transforming the image of the MGM Grand. Contributing to this endeavor is the Toronto design duo George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, who have created restaurants in Toronto and New York, as well as Tokyo’s Four Seasons and W Hotel in Times Square. “Everyone wants what’s new and next, but we don’t want design to suffer for keeping up with the times or conforming to a trend,” says Pushelberg. When hired to orchestrate Shibuya, MGM Grand’s latest high-end Japanese restaurant, Pushelberg and Yabu accompanied Aziz to Japan to study the hip style of the Tokyo district. “They just got it,” Aziz says.Using lighting as the central design element, as well as a way to illuminate menus and sushi boats, the space redefines the dynamic of a modern sushi bar. Light is projected through the glass walls of the restaurant’s exterior, onto the floor-to-ceiling wood screens positioned throughout and along the floor’s perimeter. To continue their vision of merging technology with the natural world, the designers positioned a large wall of video display monitors behind the sushi bar, all of which are fronted with transparent and mirrored acrylic at a 90-degree angle to produce a kaleidoscopic effect. “We were simply told to ‘make it the best,’ ” Yabu says. “They wanted a strong sense of ‘wow’ since everything in Vegas is about one-upping each other.”

Marimoto’s center aisle of Plexiglass banquettes pulses with LED lights that change color every 15 minutes. Designer Karim Rashid created a sense of movement with an undulating bamboo ceiling and sculptural walls. (Click image to enlarge)

The ability to create hip interiors without alienating diners who have more conservative tastes has kept restaurant designer Tony Chi in high demand. “When I design, I’m designing for several generations,” says Chi, who has created some 500 restaurants during his more than 20 years in the business. “There is a larger percentage of younger people entering nice restaurants, so I have to consider them. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t want to design a space my mother would feel awkward in.

In NoMI’s wine cellar marble-topped islands double as refrigerators. “People order extravagant wine. I wanted to show where it came from,” Tony Chi says. (Click image to enlarge) 

Chi’s design approach for NoMI, a contemporary French restaurant housed within the Park Hyatt Chicago, is all about blending boundaries. An upscale restaurant frequented by residents (hence the name, which alludes to North Michigan Avenue) and hotel guests, the design had to be both multifunctional and transitional to accommodate the three different moods of breakfast, lunch and dinner. “The simple redesign of a space by adjusting the name can do so much,” explains Chi, who renamed the bar the Salon for a little extra panache and to, again, blur the boundaries of how most people define a bar’s use. “Telling a woman you’ll meet her at the Salon sounds so much better–you can meet someone at a salon for breakfast, but you can’t meet at a bar.”

AR Valentien, named for a local painter, stays true to its Craftsman roots and features lanterns made by seven different artisans. (Click image to enlarge)

Chi carried that philosophy into NoMI’s other spaces as well, tweaking the name of the private dining room to the Butler Dining Room, which offers VIP butler service. “At most places, the private dining room is basically an empty room,” explains Chi who uses the classic materials of leather and wenge wood to convey a sense of timelessness and warmth. “Here, it’s a dining room that just happens to be private.”

While a restaurant designer can bring experience and insight to the table, the restaurant owner is under pressure to stay ahead of the competition, and that has caused many to look outside the box.

Karim Rashid happens to be one of those out-of-the-box kind of individuals. An industrial designer known for his streamlined perfume bottle creations for fashion designer Issey Miyake, and his Yves Saint Laurent travel cosmetic set and colorful furnishings for Umbra, Rashid was hired by restaurant owner Stephen Starr to orchestrate a Philadelphia restaurant for Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. “He only had two requests,” says Rashid. “One was that nobody touches anything with their hands in the bathroom, and two, that he is visible.” Rashid chose a 20-foot-wide and 200-foot-long space and, inspired by the layout of an airplane, designed “two rows of seats on the aisles and a center section made up of tables for four or six.” Opaque white Plexiglass-framed booths in the center section are lit from the inside and change colors. “I fixed everything so that nothing could be moved, and so that the spirit and aesthetics of the space are always strong, linear and perfect,” Rashid says.

Joining Rashid in the ranks of industrial designers who transition to interior design is former Philippe Starck designer Patrick Jouin. “There are boundaries to design, but you can cross them,” says Jouin, whose design firm is named Agence. Frequently collaborating with chef Alain Ducasse, Jouin’s success lies in his ability to inject a fresh breath of modernity into classical spaces by mixing clean, colorful contemporary interiors with traditional architecture.Tucked into the Swiss Alps in the jet-set town of Gstaad, Jouin’s recently completed Chlösterli features a restaurant, bar and nightclub, all within a 300-year-old chalet. The chic après-ski hangout makes maximum use of dark curved woods and leathers, but maintains a sense of humor with whimsical touches that include the use of champagne buckets to serve milk. “The bright colors and warm textures give a good energy–it’s a happy place,” says Jouin, who juxtaposed his custom-designed contemporary chairs and tables against a backdrop of the chalet’s original furnishings, including artwork.

At Chlösterli in Gstaad, Patrick Jouin infuses contemporary touches into the traditional design. Top Photo: The private dining room, and Bottom Photo: the main dining room of the chalet’s restaurant, Spoon des Neiges. (Click images to enlarge)

Taking the trend of high design to a personal level, Los Angeles-based designer Thomas Schoos bought his own restaurant, O-Bar, and designed it for himself. “It’s different when the restaurant is your own,” Schoos explains. “You really question everything twice when it’s your own child.”

Top Photo: Curved zebra wood, light blue neck rolls and Brazilian quartz mobiles lend an airy yet sophisticated feel to the main dining room of O-Bar. Bottom Photo: Making the most of its Los Angeles locale, designer Thomas Schoos extends the restaurant’s playful atmosphere into the garden. (Click images to enlarge)

In a town where denim is considered dressy, Schoos wanted the décor of his eatery to be sophisticated yet comfortable. “It’s sexy and sleek, but not intimidating,” continues Schoos, who recently placed a family-style table with black leather benches in the center of the restaurant to encourage casual gatherings. “We wanted people to come in, hang out and have a good time.” Practical touches that do not abandon the aesthetic include cast iron reeds incorporated into the bar area. “You can water them with a martini, and the things will still thrive,” he laughs.

While top designers can give a dining space a clever edge, style can come from the simplest personal pleasures. When Bill Evans opened the Lodge at Torrey Pines and its restaurant AR Valentien in 2002, he wanted the La Jolla, Calif., project to resemble the Arts and Crafts Blacker House in Pasadena, designed by the noted architecture firm Greene & Greene. “It’s a very personal project that I had a particular vision for,” he says. “I hired designers and architects, but I knew what I wanted.”

The latest collaboration between designer Adam Tihany and chef Thomas Keller is Manhattan’s Per Se. A polished steel and leather wall sculpture highlights the room. (Click image to enlarge)

But even the most refined and creative designers can only do so much. As Tihany notes, “At the end of the day, it’s really about the food.”

DESIGNERS
Agence patrick jouin +33.55.28.89.20, www.patrickjouin.com
Karim Rashid Inc. 212.929.8657, www.karimrashid.com
Tihany Design 212.366.5544, www.tihanydesign.com
Thomas Schoos 310.854.1141, www.schoos.com
Tony Chi and Associates 212.868.8686, www.tonychi.com
Yabu Pushelberg 416.778.9779

RESTAURANTS
A.R. ValenTien 858.453.4420, www.arvalentien.com
Chlösterli +41.0.33.748.79.79, www.chlosterli.com
NoMI 312.239.4030, www.nomirestaurant.com
O-Bar 323.822.3300, www.obarrestaurant.com
Per Se 212.823.9335, www.frenchlaundry.com
Shibuya 702.891.3001, www.mgmgrand.com