New Hospitality : 143...INTERIORS 144 : 145 Discerning tastes Witnessing a shift towards a more discerning customer – not only in terms of design savviness, but in culinary taste,

New Hospitality : 143

INTERIORS

ThE fuTuRES REpORT : LEISuRE aNd hOSpITaLITyThE : fuTuRE : LaBORaTORy

Utility. Longevity. Craft. Honesty. Passion. Provenance. These are the buzzwords informing the emerging design aesthetic. Pair tradition with technology, craft sensibilities with innovative ideas, and you get the gist of where interiors are heading.

Going forward, design embraces imagination, a freedom of thought and a selection of heritage-heavy objects to deliver a unique experience. A thoughtful interior defines the brand’s DNA and creates an identity with a human perspective to engage emotionally and intellectually with the customer.

Frilled-up or frilled-down, the desired effect is a melding of design with personal experience for the increasingly refined tastes of the social connoisseur. Expecting much more than design as standard, customers now also anticipate an experience from their evening.

It’s a sentiment British designer Martin Brudnizki shares. His key projects for 2009 include Cecconi’s in West Hollywood and Le Caprice at the Pierre in New York. ‘Customers are smart and are getting more savvy in terms of defining what they want in a dining experience,’ he says. ‘Especially during these times of economic stress, diners will, above all, look for quality and value.’

As designers turn away from the obviously trendy in favour of creating something with a story and a soul, we investigate the important design directions co-mingling within the hospitality sector that not only hope to inspire an emotional resonance, but are also meant to stand the test of time.

‘We’re more pampered with food than we ever used to be, but the experience is not just about eating in a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. [It’s about what] happens to you to make it an enjoyable time.’Tim Greenhalgh, global creative chief of Fitch

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Discerning tastes

Witnessing a shift towards a more discerning customer – not only in terms of design savviness, but in culinary taste, social functioning and service expectations as well – brands should look to address the higher hopes of their target audience in the longer term. Driven by a new mood among consumers, all of whom seek niche experiences that embrace a sense of value and purpose to their being there, the environment and atmosphere should, above all, make them feel happy.

‘People are wanting more when they go out for something to eat,’ says Tim Greenhalgh, global creative chief of international design consultancy Fitch. ‘There will always be restaurants that will be about the sole activity of eating, but there will be other places where eating is part of something else

– where you’re amongst art or attending an event. Restaurants need to find a way to differentiate themselves without reverting to a gimmick. We’re more pampered with food than we ever used to be, but the experience is not just about eating in a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. [It’s about what] happens to you to make it an enjoyable time.’

An advocate of inspiring passion for a better functioning design, Rabih Hage, designer, gallery curator and creator of the Rough Luxe concept, believes that modern luxury is not only concerned with an accumulation of objects but also considers time, and encounters with people and places. While it is tempting to divide interior design into product and spatial design, Hage believes we should go back to the multitasking designer who can think not just in terms of spaces, but also in the idea of working with ‘time’. Long gone are the days when identi-designer-kit restaurants will cut the mustard, so to speak. They now need to offer more.

New spaces for new diners

As we consider the key aspects shaping restaurant and bar interiors, we look at the rise in popularity of Art Bars and Culture Clubs, where spaces are designed to be used for a variety of purposes, increasingly incorporating the community. Targeting our No-Frills Affluents (NFAs), No-Frills Dining sees fine-dining chefs serving high-quality food amidst rough, no-luxe spaces. Appealing to the Homedulgence class, The Modern Pantry delivers a home-away-from-home dining experience, which thankfully means there are still restaurants worth leaving the house for. Focusing on providing local produce and home-cooking favourites within a cosy setting, the design is as much about life as it is about style.

Countering this desire for domesticity, technology-driven features targeting the Web 2.0 generation are also coming into play, where levels of service are improved through devices such as interactive tables that customers use to place their orders.

And beyond that? We’re going to witness a shift in what food will be available and where today’s commodities will become tomorrow’s luxuries, according to Lewis Allan, director of environments at Portland Design, so be prepared for a world of endangered tastes!

In the meantime, our key hospitality trends offer food for thought.

below : birds boutique CafÉ, Cape town


Dining 2.0In the age of Rem Koolhaas’s Prada Transformer, which flips projections onto different façades, and SANAA’s upcoming Serpentine Pavillion, which alters its appearance according to the weather, design has reached high-tech heights, where mechanic, electronic and software engineering come together in the hope of improving our lives. Dining 2.0 designers are playing with sensors, LED lighting, and integrated sound and vision to provide an interactive environment.

From tables imbedded with technology to order food and drinks, to a simpler vending machine service, such as at MiNiBAR in Amsterdam, waiting at the bar or table to place your order is a thing of the past. Now, it’s about customer control: you can order or get your bill when you want, and call a waiter at the touch of a button.

Intended for a global roll-out, the self-service Clo Wine Bar in New York allows visitors to socialise with the added benefit of interactive elements so they can learn about the wine as they drink it. Similarly, at the Wine Vault at Adour Alain Ducasse, New York, motion sensor technology discloses the intricacies of customers’ wine selection at the touch of a screen.

London’s Inamo restaurant takes things a step further. Here, customers use a touch-sensitive panel to interact with the system projected onto the table surface. Conceived by the London-based design practice Blacksheep, these tactile tables allow the guest to order their own food, along with the added charm and theatre of features such as setting the ambience (customising your tabletop), viewing live images from the kitchen, playing games and even ordering a cab ride home.

‘The human element is still very much present, but the technology frees up the waiter to be more sociable and observant on the floor,’ says Inamo co-founder Noel Hunwick. ‘Interactive ordering will continue to grow and gain a significant market share. People will always enjoy a slow, formal French or Italian meal, where you are waited on at tables with linen cloths. We do, too. But this will exist alongside.’

from top : adour alain duCasse, st regis, new York,

bY the roCkwell group (photographY eriC laignel);

Clo wine bar, new York, bY 2X4; minibar, amsterdam,

bY ConCrete

opposite page : inamo, london

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Reflecting a shift for greater learning, the co-mingling of culture and cocktails presents itself in the form of bars where walls of books accompany the same space as the optics, and where you are as likely to be exposed to art, curated exhibitions and talks as you are a gin sling. Part-library, part-cinema, part-gallery, part-bar, these culture hubs provide not only a place to eat and drink, but are a destination to nourish the mind as well.

From Art Bars, where cafés and bars are furnished with works and furniture by international artists, to temporary bar installations designed to be used for a variety of purposes, the aim of these hybrid spaces is to provide art and culture within an informal environment. Propelled by the 20- and 30something Bleisure class, this blurring of pursuits is set to continue.

Located in Copenhagen’s meatpacking district, Karriere is a café and bar featuring pieces by global artists. Here, DJs share the same space as live performances and artist seminars are scheduled alongside film and video screenings, the idea being to make art an integral part of daily life and extend it beyond the traditional gallery and museum context. Famed for its amazing weekend parties and outdoor summer nights, Karriere is a favourite hang-out for a broad crowd of creative professionals and art lovers, while 8% of all profits made are allocated to artists’ grant. Similarly, Die Kunstbar in Cologne, Germany, is a restaurant/bar/workspace/gallery/lecture venue re-designed by a new artist every year, where even the cocktails are a medium for their expression.

Lending itself perfectly to the Art Bar concept, German artist Carsten Höller’s Double Club, a temporary space in London, blurs the distinction between art and life with its half-art and half-non-art concept. Tom Dixon’s pop-up Bombay Sapphire Dusk bar at Somerset House will also feature a series of live cultural events over the summer. ‘For me, this is part of an evolving phenomenon of temporary architecture – pop-up shops, restaurants and so on, that allow designers to be more extreme,’ Dixon says, ‘whilst letting brands and venues flex their muscles without the huge costs, long-term commitments and restrictive planning laws of permanent venues.’

Art Bars and Culture Clubs

this page : karriere bar, Copenhagen, bY Jeppe hein

and lærke hein

opposite page from top : die kunstbar, Cologne, bY arne

quinze; the double Club, london, bY Carsten höller and

fondazione prada

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Private DiningIn the spirit of Revived Grandeur, interiors such as Gordon Ramsay at The London – designed by David Collins Studio – and studioilse’s Grand Hôtel Stockholm are celebrating a yesteryear glamour combined with restrained, contemporary glitz. The addition of private dining spaces to restaurants and bars offers a new deluxe experience thanks to their bespoke nature and intimate scale: while promoting the restaurants that house them, these private booths, rooms and secluded dens provide a unique setting with a flexibility that means a venue can accommodate parties of any size and still embrace a set of personal values for the guest.

Driven by our Value-Added Tourists (VATs) and also by a new mood among consumers in general, all of whom are seeking niche dining experiences, the charm of the private dining room offers a stylish, intimate hideout for those who don’t necessarily want to be shaken, but prefer to be stirred.

Rejuvenated for the 21st century, the private dining room at Scott’s features a 30s décor with fixed mirror-panelled walls, setting the scene for laidback luxe. Encompassing comfort, sophistication and modernity, the design here is classic and super-chic, without being overtly so. In this sexy ambience, intimate lighting glows against the soft sheen of metallics and plush furnishings. Imagine Hollywood glamour, but in a cooler, quintessentially English way. In this same ‘grand salon’ vein, with baroque cues and modern finishes, the Crazy Bear in Beaconsfield offers a private bar and dining rooms with dedicated waiting staff and bespoke menus.

Given a new Soho identity by studioilse, Kettner’s celebrates the thrills and spills of the Belle Époque era and the frisson associated with theatreland. French, fancy and fun, the space is designed with private events in mind. Its nine distinctively different rooms can be booked for an intimate dinner à deux or a flamboyant soirée.

Epitomising private booth chic is new London eaterie Bob Bob Ricard, with its jewel-box interior by prolific London designer David Collins. A reincarnation of Edwardian first-class rail travel, the petrol-blue upholstered and gold-trimmed booths are officially the coolest booths in town.

from top : bob bob riCard, london, bY david

Collins studio; kettner’s, london,

bY studioilse (photographY paul raeside)

opposite page : gordon ramsaY at the london,

los angeles, bY david Collins studio

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Championing a melding of design with personal experience and a building’s provenance, The New Gentleman’s Club demonstrates just how to create a contemporary atmosphere of insouciant charm and relaxed sophistication without reverting to a pastiche of period style.

Imagine a modern-day lounge, where cigar rooms meet library bars amid an old-school aesthetic of wood panelling, open fireplaces and deep-buttoned leather chairs. More masculine than feminine, this style predominantly concerns traditional materials, where timbers, metals and leathers are used in a creative and modern way.

Call it nostalgic, call it refined, the new Lost Angel restaurant and bar by Lee Broom features a white-painted telephone box amongst the deep-buttoned squish of the leather chairs. ‘The initial concept was to focus on the old London boozer with a twist,’ Broom says. ‘The basic theme was to deliver a nod to all things British and eccentric with gentlemen’s-club details within the design. We picked up these details by adding Chesterfield-style upholstery and crystal decanters within the back bar display to create a classic element to the design which will never date.’

Where there was Shoreditch House, there’s now The East Room, also in London’s buzzy Shoreditch district. Designed by the Milk & Honey club’s Jonathan Downey, the club lounge interior demonstrates how to work 60s and 70s vintage against a backdrop of the exposed brick of a former warehouse.

Focusing on combining bars and books, the Library Bar of The Gild Hall hotel in New York exudes an old-world charm with modern style, while the new Autoban-designed Kitchenette Bebek in Istanbul features a Library Bar designed in the manner of a gentleman’s club, along with a tapas bar: traditional, but with a (tapas) twist.

Gentleman’s Dens

from top : gild hall, new York, bY Jim

walrod; the george, hamburg (photographY

CYrus saedi and georgios engonidis);

lan Club, shanghai, bY gilles & boissier;

kee Club, shanghai

opposite page from top : kitChenette bebek,

istanbul, bY autoban; kettner’s, london, bY

studioilse (photographY bY paul raeside)

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Modern PantryThe move towards a greater informality in restaurant design combines low-key branding with an intimate, home-away-from-home ambience where seasonal and familiar foods are served in interiors that feel like home. As people increasingly open up their homes to dish up exceptional, locally produced meals, restaurants are integrating the front of house with the back, building in light and airy kitchens so everyone can see what normally goes on behind the scenes.

‘We have been encouraged over the past 20 years to dine out for more than just special or business occasions, due in part to the activities of Terence Conran and his ilk,’ says Lynda Relph-Knight, editor of Design Week. ‘More recently, as times have become tougher, we’ve been encouraged to dine in and cook more, courtesy of celebrity chefs on tv and supermarket ‘all-in’ deals. Now, and in future, we need a coming together of the two, with restaurants that are affordable, but offer quality food and ambience, balanced with restaurant cookbooks, ingredient kits and tableware to recreate the experience at home. Meanwhile, authentic restaurants like the local Italian are likely to thrive for dining out, as we look for quality home-cooking and the reassurance of familiarity.’

London-based architecture and design practice Jump Studios recently completed work on The Modern Pantry, the latest venture from world-renowned chef Anna Hansen. Coining the term for the new aesthetic, The Modern Pantry comprises an upstairs and downstairs restaurant as well as a shop/pantry within the converted Georgian property on St John’s Square in Clerkenwell, London. The homely, almost folksy, vibe was designed to complement Hansen’s culinary mission.

‘We wanted to create a link between Anna’s approach to cooking and the restaurant itself to reconnect people to traditional architectural references, but in new and interesting ways,’ says Jump director Simon Jordan. ‘Ultimately, we wanted to create an environment that was more akin to a domestic space than a public one, with a comforting element to match the style of the food on offer.’

Weaving along the same thread, conceptual food artist Marije Vogelzang takes a holistic approach to dining, using food as a medium to form bonds and social connections. Eating is, after all, the ultimate social act, and at Proef, her Amsterdam-based café-cum-food lab, she practises what she preaches.

from top : gemma CuCina, rome, bY onthetable;

the modern pantrY, london, bY Jump studios

opposite page from top : pane e aCqua, milan,

bY rossana orlandi; the modern pantrY

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Luxe CanteensServing up health-conscious food to the new fast-food generation, good-looking fast-food outlets are upping their luxe quota to appeal to family diners, without deflecting from what they essentially do: good, cheap food – fast.

‘The needs of the consumer within the leisure sector have become significantly greater due to the rise of designer living and global travel, says Adrian Carter, editor of Hospitality Interiors. ‘In the height of the economic downturn, however, it seems we are looking for quality as well as value for money. Our taste hasn’t changed, but we are thinking more on a scale whereby value and service is offered by our favourite brands.’

Appealing to a niche where Pizza Express continues to be popular, these are prime destinations for families, as acceptable to parents as they are to children. Think second-generation Wagamamas meets organic fare.

Setting the precedent, WakuWaku in Hamburg is Germany’s first bio-wok restaurant, dishing up delicious wok dishes from all over the world. The first in a chain of restaurants for the fast-food revolution brand, its philosophy revolves around providing sustainable, good value and healthy food, which is prepared extremely quickly.

‘The idea was to combine the consumer insights for an ever growing need for convenience food – fast, to-go, easygoing, relaxed – an increasing interest for healthy nutrition, and a rising awareness for ecological issues,’ says chief creative officer Gregor Woeltje, who was responsible for the restaurant’s branding and conceptual aspects. ‘WakuWaku offers pure organic food, individually prepared, reasonably priced and served at real fast-food speed. More and more consumers are looking for sustainable products and services, and we see a bright future for sustainable brands in all sorts of markets. [As] Germany is the world’s biggest market for organic food, it made a lot of sense to launch the brand here.’

In Amsterdam, the elegant Julia restaurant follows suit, where buzzwords ‘pure’, ‘honest’, ‘healthy’ and ‘natural’ formed the basis of the brief to architects Merkx + Girod. At Ferran Adrià’s Fast Good in Madrid, the quick service and high-quality food also meets the demand of the growing market. And, combining a healthy diet and modern lifestyle desires, the chic interiors of Nana’s Green Tea in Yokohama, Japan, serves up dozens of hot and cold green tea combinations and matcha (green tea) ice cream to loyal crowds.

all images : wakuwaku, hamburg, bY ippolito fleitz

(photographY zooeY braun)

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No-Frills DiningOverlooking the warehouses of San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighbourhood, Kitchenette serves up high-quality, street-inspired lunches out of a garage door. Cash only, limited supplies: when the pan runs dry, it’s dry. The invention of a co-operative of chefs all hailing from the finest kitchens in the Bay Area, this ad hoc dining experience is about fine-dining chefs providing high-quality food in a rough, no-luxe space. There are neither flowers, nor tablecloths, nor stuffy atmospheres here. Refreshingly, the restaurant design is based on the chef and the food, rather than the fancy interior.

Driven by our No-Frills Affluents (NFAs), this desire for the super-fresh and delicious – minus the pretensions that so often accompany it – follows a sentiment of simplicity. As consumers cut back and reassess their lifestyle priorities with a greater emphasis on honest value over decadence, design directions follow suit. Some places forgo the waitstaff completely, with the chef serving food only when they see fit.

In New York, the SoHo Grand is making the most of the No-Frills trend. The hotel’s summertime bar, The Yard, is located in a narrow side alley and is billed as being the SoHo Grand’s ‘best-kept summer secret’. Also adopting the charmingly ‘bare-bones’ aesthetic in tune with their culinary beliefs, Feast in Houston delivers rustic European fare. ‘Our desire is to summon the spirit of a family meal shared around the kitchen table of an old-fashioned European family,’ says Richard Knight, co-founder of Feast. ‘For us, the future is not about fine dining. It is about simple, unpretentious dining at a reasonable price. We like to think we serve peasant food.’

Running off the mission statement ‘Fresh food from here and there’, SoBo in British Columbia, Canada, started out by serving fresh local seafood from the back of a caravan. Recently re-located to a swish, more permanent address, the company sticks to its roots of providing sophisticated street food to a dedicated clientele.

Bird’s Boutique Café in Cape Town is similarly über-casual: upturned milk crates provide seating at rough, wooden trestle tables, while birdsong plays in the air. Founders Mathilde and Heike Stegmann place the emphasis of their cooking on simple, seasonal ingredients, which they source from small, organic farms.

from top : bird’s boutique CafÉ, Cape town;

proef, amsterdam, bY mariJe vogelzang

opposite page : ‘global street food’

installations bY mike meirÉ for dornbraCht

(photographY hartmut nägele and tim giesen)

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resourCes

www.adour-stregis.Com

www.blaCksheepweb.Com

www.bobbobriCard.Com

www.CeCConiswesthollYwood.Com

www.CrazYbeargroup.Co.uk

www.davidCollins.Com

www.designweek.Co.uk

www.diekunstbar.de

www.english.proefamsterdam.nl

www.fitCh.Com

www.gordonramsaY.Com

www.grandhotel .se

www.hospitalitY-interiors.Co.uk

www.inamo-restaurant.Com

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www.waku-waku.eu

www.winebarnYC.Com

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New Hospitality : 143...INTERIORS 144 : 145 Discerning tastes Witnessing a shift towards a more discerning customer – not only in terms of design savviness, but in culinary taste,