May 26, 2020

Text: Jesse Dorris

Nathan Litera Brings Joie de Vivre into Spring Place Restaurant in NYC

The ceiling treatment is white French plaster, hand-colored with peach nuances onsite. Photography by Matt Harrington.

Before he began his own firm in 2014, Nathan Litera worked with everyone from Kohn Pedersen Fox to Jean Nouvel and Joseph Dirand. His new interiors for New York’s Spring Place Restaurant, Bar and Lounge are a perfect synthesis of these influences.

Codimat fabricated the custom moiré carpet. Photography by Matt Harrington.

Plus, he says, a little “Pierre Cardin-era Palais Bulle, and vintage Italian pieces from the 60s and 70s.” The 4,500 square feet feel unified in large part thanks to a reliance on his own custom touches, from floors (moiré carpets) to ceiling (peach-hued plaster), the latter of which was shipped across the water to the U.S. and installed, Litera says, “by French specialists in record time, working day and night.”

For the finishing touch? A little oxygen, via planters that act as room dividers and an ersatz greenhouse above the bar courtesy of a suspended glass and steel box. “We wanted to give some soul to the structure,” Litera says, breathing life into the historical references.

Pivoting glass doors with blackened-steel frames open onto a seating area with a custom circular sofa; the floors are Danish oak in a custom dark brown stain. Photography by Matt Harrington.
Italian black and gold Portoro marble tops and faces the bar, with custom brass lamps. Photography by Matt Harrington.
Custom seating surrounds tables topped with pink- and red-veined Breccia Viola marble. Photography by Matt Harrington.
Gino Sarfatti chandeliers from Astep illuminate the dining area’s custom stained-walnut and velvet banquettes. Photography by Matt Harrington.

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