10 Global Restaurants Deliver Design à la Carte
Our menu of unexpected dining options:
1. Firm: Jordi Ginabreda-Interior Design Studio.
Project: La Bona Sort.
Site: Barcelona, Spain.
Standout: Like the past and the present shaking hands, 16th-century stone walls and brick arches surround contemporary dining cubes in fir.
2. Firm: Associated Architects Partnership.
Project: Dallah.
Site: Kuwait City.
Standout: Along the length of this bakery’s graphic wall, oak pinwheels seem to spin merrily, their shape complemented by the hexagonal-patterned vinyl behind.
3. Firm: Studio Norguet Design.
Project: McDonald’s.
Site: Paris.
Standout: The gray of cast concrete walls makes a quiet backdrop for the light boxes’ riot of color, attracting passersby on the AVenue des Champs-Élysées.
4. Firm: Giuseppe Gurrieri.
Project: Ecò.
Site: Ragusa, Italy.
Standout: Hinged sections of this coffee bar’s laminated resin-coated poplar facade pull out to form a trio of tabletops for espresso alfresco.
5. Firm: Studio Collective.
Project: Estrella.
Site: Los Angeles.
Standout: White oak and Douglas fir, hand-painted Mexican tiles, vintage and custom furniture, and a lush brick patio come together for a 1970s bungalow vibe with contemporary nods.
6. Firm: Dutch East Design.
Project: Jue Lan Club Hamptons.
Site: Southampton, New York.
Standout: Beachy sophistication breezes through the modern Chinese restaurant in the form of Pablo Studio pendants, crisp Sunbrella chair fabric, white-painted beadboard ceiling, and outdoor ceramic lanterns.
7. Firm: Olson Kundig.
Project: Optimism Brewing Co.
Site: Seattle.
Standout: Interior Design Hall of Famer Tom Kundig has transformed a 1920s former auto shop into a 400-seat establishment showcasing the beer-making process, while also preserving the site’s original single-pane windows and board-formed concrete walls and repurposing its old-growth fir roof trusses into custom benches.
8. Firm: Karoline Butzert and Nora Witzigmann.
Restaurant: Oh Panama.
Location: Berlin.
Standout: The German children’s book Oh, wie schön ist Panama as well as vintage volumes on Central and South America inspired the tropical aesthetic permeating the two-story space, dominated by pale ash wood and a chandelier of vintage lights by Björn Dahlem.
9. Firms: Ste. Marie and Glasfurd & Walker.
Restaurant: Savio Volpe.
Location: Vancouver, BC.
Standout: Dubbed “Italian Farmhouse modern,” the osteria is at once rustic and polished, its custom furniture and lighting owing a debt to Enzo Mari, Carlo Mollino, and Bruno Munari, and its name Italian for wise fox, who stars in the logo.
10. Firm: Workshop/APD.
Restaurant: Taka.
Location: Asbury Park, NJ.
Standout: Grasshopper software was used to create the undulating exterior brickwork, a bitmap converted from a wave in the Walter Myers mural inside, where acrylic pendant globes mingle with oak ceiling panels and Concertex’s starburst Polaris upholstery.
