New restaurants place quality, value in design over trendiness

Nation's Restaurant News, June 30, 1986 by Adam Tihany

New restaurants place quality, value in design over trendiness

If restaurant design is essentially theater, then the difference between some of the newest restaurants now cropping up in or near large corporate centers and much of what has gone before is something like the difference between Shakespeare and Off-Broadway. Particularly in New York, a new breed of restaurant catering to expense account executives has emerged, one that places quality over trendiness, timelessness over fashion, value over mere chic-appeal.

A little more than 25 years after the great Four Seasons demonstrated that fine food and strong design can coexist, even flourish, in a corporate setting, Manhatten's restaurant world is finally taking the cue. Recent months have witnessed the opening of several new restaurants offering an elegant, down-to-business atmosphere produced by careful attention to the most minute design details, serious concern for quality of all fronts and a deliberate lack of commitment to any architectural identity. Despite steep prices, there is a palpable sense of value for dollars spent.

It's a clear trend with plenty of implications for the restaurant industry's future. And it's not too surprising to note that the authors of the revolution are experienced restaurant professionals, not the first-time-out restaurant amateurs who influenced the last wave of lively, trendy dining places.

Two new restaurants in New York's recently completed Equitable Center evidence the beginnings of what will probably mark a wholesale realignment of restaurant business and design thinking. Palio, named for the famous pageant in Sienna, Italy, offers innovative Italian fare in a warm, contemporary setting created by the New York office of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Veteran Italian restaurateur Tony May skillfully directs the restaurant's management.

Entered from an open plaza, the ground level of Palio is a large, double-height rectangular bar with a black-and-white checkerboard marble floor. Walls, above fine wood paneling, are devoted to an intensely colored, custom-commissioned mural depicting the "Palio" game by noted artist Sandro Chia. A brass rail that wraps around all four walls conceals uplights for the mural; chairs and bar stools are of simple design finished in black lacquer.

The dining room, which is not visible from the bar, is reached via a handsomely appointed elevator, lending a sense of escaping to a private dining room.

Here interiors have been executed along restrained lines consistent with the large Center's contemporary architecture. Custom wood paneling and onyx insets prevail once again. But here they are softened and complemented by heavy taupe-colored carpeting and wall sections faced with light-colored stucco.

Palio's design, however, does not stop at the surface and appointments level. Table settings, furniture and service routine have been carefully tailored to further the interior design's tone. While Palio's reported design budget, in excess of $4 million, can rightly be considered astronomical for an operation of its size, it is apparent that the money's effect extends to even the smallest details of the design and operation.

The effect certainly is not lost on the restaurant's patrons, who seem to be responding to Palio's hightone professionalism with appreciation and lucrative respect.

Around the corner, another Equitable Center restaurant, Le Bernardin, is similar to Palio only in the effect an exceptionally generous budget and careful planning have had on every detail of design and operation. Designed by Philip George for the operator of a legenday Paris restaurant of the same name, Le Bernardin has a decor that is a sort of urban version of country French design.

One generously scaled room accommodates a waiting area, a small bar and a dining room, all spanned by a handsome coffered ceiling of light-stained wood. There is dark carpeting, a large oil painting in deeply carved gilt frames, dining chairs upholstered in dark, foral fabric and, of course, white tablecloths. Ceramic vases filled with fresh flowers are set in wall niches throughout the room. And, again, the tables are set with the best china, silver and crystal.

All that, combined with a four-star food rating from the New York Times, has almost instantly catapulted Le Bernardin to a status that most restaurant veterans spend years working toward.

Restaurants that lure executives out of the corporate dining room with quality food, quality design and quality service do not have to be part of a specific office complex. For example, Aurora, a new Manhattan restaurant consultant Joseph Baum and designed by Milton Glaser in association with Philip George, has recently attracted a loyal, largely corporate following. Its appeal is based on a well-considered upscale menu and design that walks a fine line between staid sobriety and a rather intellectual sort of whimsy.

Centered on a large, open bar, the design features soft colors, classical shapes and details and a light-hearted recurring theme of bubbles. Suspended light fixtures establish the bubble shape, and the dark carpeting is patterned with bubblelike forms. Even the custom-designed logo and dinner plates--indeed, just about everything here was custom-designed--carry the motif in one form or another.