Next time you dine out, it may not be the menu or the wine list that most impresses you, but the carefully crafted surroundings—here are six of the world’s most beautiful restaurants
Today’s restaurants can look like anything from a boudoir to a spaceship, from a Buddhist temple to a souk. Provided there’s somewhere to rest a plate, when it comes to inspiration the world is the restaurant designer’s oyster.
Over the past two decades restaurants have reflected global interior design trends from retro-pop to modern classic and new Baroque, as well as Maximalist and high concept. So what’s changed in recent years?
All-white futuristic interiors with gimmicky changing multicolored lighting and “concept” bathrooms have fallen out of favor, replaced by heritage chic and upscale pubs with conspicuously handcrafted, nature-inspired interiors, as evidenced at London’s newly opened Hide. Lo-fi, back-to-basics interiors are also having a moment as millennial “food-truckers” establish permanent homes, but luxury restaurants will always be about entertainment and theater, escapism and indulgence—places to see and be seen. Now, in the Instagram age, to achieve global recognition, restaurant interiors need to be beautifully lit and camera ready. Feast your eyes on six of the best designed restaurants around the globe.
Madrid, Spain
Restaurants come and go, with remarkably few reaching landmark anniversaries, so you know you’re an institution when you celebrate three decades of welcoming diners. Madrid’s two-Michelin-starred La Terraza del Casino, which opened in 1988, benefits not only from having avant-garde chef Paco Roncero in charge, but also from a rooftop location in the Casino de Madrid.
A true progressive, Roncero tasked flamboyant Spanish designer Jaime Hayón with remodeling the restaurant’s interior 10 years ago and now Hayón has returned to refresh his vision. His original checkerboard floor, contemporary chandeliers, and geometric columns have long been the ideal setting for Roncero’s high-concept food. So the designer knew he had to retain certain elements, while introducing others, such as new ceramics, vases, and objects.
We wanted a return to tropical glamour… transporting diners back in time.
Most radical is Hayón’s new color palette. To add warmth the designer has replaced his original subtle gray neutrals with bright blue and egg-yolk yellow accents, which appear most strikingly on large-scale artworks, the distinctive columns, and his own Catch armchairs—all set against a backdrop of pastel green. “We wanted a return to tropical glamour, something a bit Colonial with a Cuban feel reflecting on Spanish heritage and transporting diners back in time,” he says. Additional greenery, particularly banana palms, adds to this exotic flavor.
London, UK
Creating a restaurant within a heritage building is always a challenge, particularly when the building happens to be a 300-year-old Grade II*-listed church. But restrictions can inspire and that certainly was the case for Michaelis Boyd after the practice was asked to design the London outpost of Duddell’s, an acclaimed Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong. “There were many challenges in adapting the church into a modern, upscale dining room,” explains practice cofounder Alex Michaelis. “We couldn’t introduce anything that was irreversible, but we saw these restrictions as creative opportunities.”
There are no design ties with the original two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Hong Kong. “The restaurants are only linked by the style of food and the art program,” says Michaelis. “We were asked to reinterpret a traditional 1960s Hong Kong tea restaurant, but we didn’t want something that was pastiche.”
Instead, the interior architects responded to the existing architecture, capitalizing on the double-height space by installing a mezzanine level that creates a sense of drama. Rich, dark-wood paneling rising to the altar at one end anchors the space, while the simple white walls lend an ecclesiastical simplicity that juxtaposes well with the contemporary geometrics of the new additions. Bespoke golden chandeliers help redefine the area, breaking up the volume of the space, while the glass pendants suspended above the banquettes reference Chinese lanterns and introduce a more intimate scale.
The result is a grand, buzzing dining room that is full of noise and the aromas generated by the central open dim sum kitchen at its heart. “When it is the middle of service and the whole area has a halo of steam, you could almost be in Hong Kong,” says Michaelis.
San Jose, California, USA
Chef and restaurateur Chris Yeo has been entertaining diners in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 30 years, pioneering Pan-Asian food across a portfolio of destination restaurants that began in 1987 with the opening of Straits Café. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Singapore, Yeo has made his gastro empire a family affair, with his son Julian overseeing the latest opening—The Province in the Bay 101 Casino. “My goal is to create a fun yet sophisticated environment that brings people together,” says Yeo junior of the 7,000 sq ft (650 sq m) space created by Charles Doell of Oakland-based Mister Important Design.
Larger-than-life hospitality interiors are very much Doell’s forte. “We feel the sparks fly best when kitsch and glamour, new and old, high and low all rub up against each other,” he says. Industrial roll-up guillotine-style doors with red stained glass slide up or down to create private dining areas. Above these, carved oversized panels based on Asian screenwork recall Alan Yau’s Michelin-starred Hakkasan restaurant in London.
We feel the sparks fly best when kitsch and glamour, new and old, high and low all rub up against each other.
“We sought to capture something glamorous and inviting,” says Doell of the dramatic interior, “so we chose a palette of dark woods, warm leathers, and red tones of crimson and burgundy with gold accents—symbols of happiness and fortune in some Asian cultures.”
Local muralist Jet Martinez handpainted the walls in an abstract red and gold floral pattern based on chrysanthemums, while grand brass chandeliers inject a theatrical banqueting feel. Doell likens the island bar to a “fishing boat lit by lanterns suspended by coarse ropes.” With its floor and façade of contrasting teal tiles, the bar anchors the space, providing a lively focal point in both design and ambience.
Tokyo, Japan
The Japanese capital is full of brilliantly designed restaurants and bars. Small and tucked away with nary a glimpse of the external surroundings, these spaces transport diners into extraordinary worlds thanks to the art of Japanese designers. Nikunotoriko, in the buzzing district of Roppongi, is an example of Nipponese design daring conceived by architect Ryoji Iedokoro. An indoor forest? Check. A cave inspired by Arizona’s Antelope Canyon? Check. Oh, and a rooftop barbecue area. Why not?
Simple prehistoric life inspired Nikunotoriko, which translates as “under the spell of meat” and serves yakiniku—small portions of vegetables and premium meats that customers barbecue on tabletop grills. Diners escape from the neon city into a rocky cavern on the first floor, formed from hand-molded mortar, where a long glass banqueting table for 20 is replicated into infinity by a mirrored wall.
On the second floor, meanwhile, guests dine among a forest of steel pipes (with branches that serve as coat hooks), surrounded by ferns and verdant living walls. Chipboard layered into mountain-like contours forms a floor of natural terraces with sunken areas where guests sit on low cushions. Eating communally among strangers is uncommon in Japan, but Iedokoro’s interior demonstrates the power of design to encourage people to dine and socialize together.
Singapore
Odette opened in Singapore’s National Art Gallery following the institution’s refit in 2015. Two years later it had already notched up two Michelin stars and this year came 28th in the prestigious World’s Best 50 Restaurants list.
Named after the grandmother of its French-born chef, Julien Royer, Odette has just 12 tables, plus a private dining room. It is a bijou yet perfect vision of pale pink and gray tones, softened by floor-to-ceiling drapes, natural timber and pink terrazzo marble—with a dash of nickel and brass elements for glamour. Odette’s design is the work of London-based agency Universal Design Studio (UDS), the interiors division of renowned British design duo Barber & Osgerby.
“Our ambition was to create a space that would be considered a work of art in itself; respond to chef Royer’s approach to food; and have a dialogue with the heritage of the host building,” says UDS director Jason Holley. The gentle palette is a direct response to Royer’s refined, delicate dishes. And while diners are able to see chefs at work in a contemporary glass-encased kitchen, there are subtle references to the gallery’s past too: the building once housed the Supreme Court, and was one of the last of Singapore’s structures to be built in the Classical style. Faceted columns are a nod to the original Corinthian ones, and the floor in the gallery’s lobby is Palladiana marble.
Our ambition was to create a space that would be considered a work of art in itself.
Singaporean artist Dawn Ng collaborated on the project, creating the central constellation of mobiles, The Theory of Everything, reminiscent of a flock of birds in flight. “Many of the elements are based on translating Royer’s ingredients philosophy into a design language using materials in simple and authentic ways, while respecting their integrity and purity. Raw, tactile elements are juxtaposed against refined textures and finishes,” adds Holley.
Manhattan, New York, USA
Starchitect Peter Marino is as known for his black leather biker outfits as for his lavish store interiors around the globe. The Lobster Club marks his North American restaurant debut. As you’d expect, the dining space is replete with marble, travertine, black leather, onyx, and oxidized bronze as befits its host building—Mies van der Rohe’s 1958 Seagram Building.
Iconic architecture may have dictated the noble materials, but art provided much of the inspiration, particularly 20th-century greats Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock. Picasso ceramics line the back bar, while Marino, who is also an artist and art collector, created the abstract metal sculptures influenced by the prolific Spanish artist that line the top of a row of seating booths. Concrete floor tiles in the main dining room are drip-painted by artist Laura Berman to evoke Pollock’s visceral canvases, and prints on the walls by Marino recall Richard Prince paintings.
Blackened bronze dividers, salmon pink or chartreuse camo upholstery, and zebra-striped white ebony dominate in the main dining room, while a contrasting dining area, separated by black leather curtains, features deep red terrazzo tiles and seating. In the private dining room, this color scheme intensifies, with black leather walls and red leather seating.
