The more gastronomy becomes a fast growing industry the more restaurants think about their architecture. All around the world people invest their money in qualified dining experiences everyday. They don’t just want to eat healthy but try new things that promise them new stories to tell about. Yes, we say “stories” which includes all the details from plates to tables, architectural plan and menu design. With all these in mind as an architecture firm we research and develop new strategies while forming our new high end restaurant design projects.
First of all, there are two main elements for a luxury restaurant design: Interior Design and Operation, those give us the overall ambiance. When it comes to interior design, the concept and the story behind it are the most important issues. The designer of Margot in Covent Garden, Strother echoed the fine Italian cuisine through fine Italian crafts and traditions, such as Palladian flooring. Warm copper accents were also reminiscent of the copper pans “Nonna” (Italian for “grandma”) used for cooking pasta.
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Interior Design Is A Matter of Identity
When it comes to fine dining and high end restaurant design we know that the design should shape upon a foundation of strong identity, background narrative and creative storytelling.
When we approach to a new project we ask our customers: “What do you do?”, “Who are you?”, “Why are you doing it?” As an instance, Jim Sullivan from Pearl Group goes, “Restaurants fail because they have an identity crisis. They don’t know who they are.”.
Although following the trends in luxury restaurant design is a way, the other crucial thing is to stay one step ahead and try to discover the soul of “your" restaurant apart from all fashion conversation.
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What About Operations in High End Restaurant Design? Form Follows Function
A famous architect Louis Sullivan who is the master of legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright says: “Form follows function.” This cannot be more true for luxury restaurant design. In this phase, the questions which must be answered are: “How do guests arrive at the restaurant?, What route does the food take from the kitchen to the guests’ table and how is it delivered?
Tom Strother is the co-founder and creative director of interior design firm Fabled Studio says, “If a restaurant doesn’t work properly from a functionality point of view — it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is, it will never be a success. ” The location of all the elements, from circulation spaces, to seating areas to the bar, all contribute to the operations of a space. If people can’t get a drink or the food is stone-cold, then the space fails, and that affects the business.
In a high end restaurant design the general rule for space allotment is that the dining area takes up 60% of the space, while the kitchen, storage, and restrooms take up the remaining 40%. Traffic should let the waiters to serve quickly so flow of staff and customers is a vital subject. The restrooms have to be located easily because people don’t like to ask where they are. Lighting should be dim and warm while it is safe and low-maintenance.
Our Luxury Restaurant Fit-out Projects
In one of our high end restaurant fit-out projects, Zuma, we constructed a restaurant with a concept of Izakaya Style Dining. The main concept was to share. The tables of the venue were manufactured from a particular wood of a tree that only grows in Thailand. The material used for the manufacturing of the wooden sitting units, the DJ cabin, shared tables, and the reception desk were imported from Africa. Lighting has been an essential component in creating the ambience of Zuma; hence, special lenses for this purpose were installed accordingly. A team consisted of a lighting designer, an automation expert, an electrical engineer and architects was assigned and worked on this aspect of the project. These are examples of the aspects we consider in a comprehensive high end restaurant fit-out which turn out to be a success story in the end.
Le Petite Maison and The Populist can be listed as Istanbul’s two important restaurants which are contracted by us with all these rules in mind. You can click here to see our high end restaurant fit-out projects.