Piscatorial elegance

Architectural Review, The, Nov, 2000 by PENNY McGUIRE

In the gastronomic desert of Victoria, London, a new restaurant provides an airy dining room and long shining bar.

Zander (a species of pike-perch) is the name of the latest London restaurant by Julyan Wickham and his practice, renamed Wickham van Eyck architects. Like previous Wickham restaurants -- Bank in Aldwych (AR January 1997), Fourth Floor at Harvey Nichols (AR July 1993) and Kensington Place in Kensington Church Street (designed in the late eighties and still going strong) -- it is a reworking of the traditional big Parisian brasserie.

This new restaurant, operated by the same Bank client, burrows its way through the ground floor of the St James' Court Hotel in Victoria, an area that has long been something of a gastronomic desert. The site was difficult because of its claustrophic potential, being a long rectangle running the full depth of the hotel, south from the entrance on Buckingham Gate to a semi-circular bay at the back. Compensation was in the site's termination at the wonderfully florid St James' Court -- an internal courtyard dating from 1899 and one of Victoria's hidden treasures. Designed by C. J. Chirney Pawley, it is enclosed by tall apartment blocks of red brick with white stone bands and projecting balconies like miradors. Facing the exterior of the ground floor is a carapace of green tiles beneath a terracotta frieze depicting familiar tales from Shakespeare.

To bring light into the interior, and to make this rather surreal backdrop part of Zander's ambiance, Wickham has burst through the bay and added a curving glass conservatory. This forms an outer transparent arc of dining space extending the main dining room -- on plan the two spaces form a shallow fish tail. In summer the conservatory can be opened out (though this delight is marred by the uninspired planting and ugly containers cluttering the courtyard. They should be cleared away and the place simply paved).

Down the main body of Zanders, Wickham has established two corridors. They stretch from entrance to dining room and run either side of islands containing secluded alcoves, a central wine store and coffee making facility, and stairwells to basement lavatories and kitchens. Lining the west wall and accentuating the restaurant's extent, is 'the longest bar in the world', a shining 37m sweep of brushed stainless steel. Down the east wall are private dining rooms, the surfaces of inner walls textured, patterned and coloured by strips of oak. Sliding and folding screens allow them to be combined or opened out as part of the main restaurant.

Kitchens are subterranean and carefully and sequentially organised -- by now, Wickham's practice must be one of the most experienced in the logistical business of designing them. As usual, a great deal of enjoyment can be derived from this practice's playful detailing. Dining chairs are recognisably developments of earlier successful pieces for Kensington Place. Light slots in vaults arching across the bar contain miniature versions of Bank's glass ceiling fins. In the main dining room, clusters of luminous glass globes float over diners; and in private rooms indirect luminance is diffused by suspended plates of translucent glass held in metal frames.

Wickham is one of the few architects who really loves playing with colour and in Zander small planes and niches provide brilliant splashes of it -- orange, purple, lemon yellow and blue. Such incidents surmount the scheme's introversion and there is always the vision of the light filled conservatory even from the entrance.

Architect

Wickham van Eyck architects

Project architects

Julyan Wickham, Tess Wickham, David Appleton, James Beazer, Olivia Czartoryska, Max Edwards, Emma Frater, Dann Jessen, Desmond Lavery, Anke Noss, Jason Pau, Tim Pitman, Jonathan Rush, Maneesha Sonawane, David Taylor, Luke Tozer, Wing Sai Tusi, Nicole Weiner, Nicky Wells, clarisse Wernet, James White, Matt White, Anna Williamson

Murals

Pola Wickham

Lighting

London Lighting

Photographs

Peter Cook/VIEW

1. Conservatory and main dining room at night.

2. Glass conservatory and nineteenth century backdrop of St James' Court.

3. Stainless steel bar, granite floor and bar stools by Wickham.

4. Conservatory and main dining room under clusters of luminous globes.

5. Private dining room, lined and floored in oak.

1. entrance

2. bar

3. wine store/coffee making

4. private dining room

5. main dining room

6. conservatory