A taste for design

bHave you seen the restroom?bIf youbve dined at one of Atlantabs newer restaurants in the past five years, youbve probably heard this question b or even asked it yourself. Perhaps at Midtownbs the Consulate, where toy guns spray-painted black line the wall of the menbs room; or at Decaturbs Kimball House, where bathrooms feature painted beadboard partitions and black-and-white tiles; or at the new Westside location of Bacchanalia, where theybre covered with cow-patterned wallpaper.Itbs a seemingly minor question but one that speaks volumes about the growing prominence of both architectural and interior design in Atlantabs restaurant scene b one where the spaces are so beautiful, even their restrooms are worthy of dinner-table chatter.And it isnbt just local diners who have noticed, either. In May, restaurateur Ford Frybs Buckhead-based Italian dining spot St. Cecilia nabbed a James Beard Foundation Restaurant Design Award for New York design firm Meyer Davis. It marked the first time a studio had won a James Beard Design Award for an Atlanta restaurant b and served as an objective industry nod to something local food lovers have increasingly recognized for years: The citybs eateries arenbt just serving up better food than ever; they look better than ever, too.bSome 20 years ago, you really just had bSouthern,b in terms of food and aesthetic,b says Liset Robinson, SCAD Atlantabs associate chair of interior design. bAtlanta has become so diverse and interconnected, culturally, that we now have restaurants of all different styles.bNo value assignedRestaurateurs like Fry are largely to thank for that, and not just because of St. Ceciliabs recent recognition. Atlanta-based designer Smith Hanes credits the Texas native with ushering in a new era of chefs with a particular, and personal, point of view on restaurant design, which has resulted in a variety of individual spaces that look distinctly different from each other. bFord was one of the first ones who brought that play between the design studio and the chef, who traditionally hadnbt been deeply involved in the build-out of a space,b says Hanes, who worked with Fry on JCT Kitchen, No. 246 and the Optimist. bThese days, the risk of too much personality is far less than not doing enough.bFry has never been shy about showing off that personality; in fact, itbs driven his aesthetic vision at each of his 10 concepts. bI in no way consider myself a designer. Ibve just always wanted to create restaurants based on where I would like to eat,b he says. bI hate dressing up, and I definitely hate wearing a tie. But I love high-quality food, so a lot of my restaurants are a balance between the two.bHanes cites a more recent example of personality in place at the East Atlanta Korean eatery/bar Gaja, co-founded by brothers and musicians Danny and Tim Song. Because the Songs and several of their friends are musicians, Hanes and his team wanted to create a vibe that was more rock bnb roll than restaurant, with concrete floors and dark, steel-gray walls decorated with graphic art posters. bThe design is meant to make diners feel like theybre going to a late-night band show in a large Asian city like Bangkok or Seoul,b Hanes says. bRight when you walk in, you walk over a metal grate and immediately get that grittiness and inner-city feel.b The owners also decorated a wall with artifacts from friends and family, including empty Soju bottles and a GG Allin bobblehead. bIt was such a personal touch to see the things their friends had collected and curated for them over the years.bNowhere is this design trend more evident than in the revamped space for Bacchanalia, which moved from the Westside Provisions District to Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard this April. While the previous space was a textbook example of fine-dining design b with its carpeted floors, tablecloths and European-style chandeliers b the new location is a love letter from chef and restaurateur Anne Quatrano to her family farm, Summerland, located in Cartersville, Georgia. bItbs as if I turned my farm into a restaurant,b Quatrano says with a small chuckle. She talks with palpable enthusiasm as she recalls a trip to Paris, where she saw oval-shaped marble dining tables, which she ultimately incorporated into the new space. And shebs just as excited when describing how her cousin burned a fallen red oak tree on the farm using a Japanese technique, Shou Sugi Ban, to antique the wood, later turned into dinner tables for Bacchanalia. bThis one was really personal.bNo value assignedAtlanta design firm Perkins+Will sought to bring Quatranobs vision to life with a number of design elements, including 150 Edison bulbs, hung from the exposed ceiling at different heights to create a web of twinkling lights. bWe wanted customers to imagine themselves sitting on a beautiful farm, looking up at the stars on a clear night sky,b says Ping Wong, associate and senior interior designer at Perkins+Will. Elsewhere, the firm constructed a pitched roof with exposed beams and wood elements, inspired by the idea of a barn. The wall that connects Bacchanalia to Star Provisions, Quatranobs market and cafC), is adorned with personal pictures of friends, dogs, the farm and other memories from her life. As Interior Design Director Joyce Fownes puts it: bThe design of the space was a full immersion into Annebs life.bBeyond infusing professional spaces with personal whimsy, restaurant design has been informed by connectivity in other ways, too. Among the biggest trends to have come onto Atlantabs restaurant scene in the last decade is the move away from formal demarcations for the bar, dining room and other restaurant spaces. This approach can be seen in the rise of open kitchens at places like Gunshow, Better Half and Staplehouse, or in the interconnected dining areas at a place like St. Cecilia, where the 16-person chefbs table rests just a few feet from the open kitchen and in plain view of nearly every other corner of the restaurant. bThe open kitchen was a concept Ford came to us with because he wanted people to have an experience that involved more than just taste,b says Meyer Davis Studio Director Elizabeth Curry. bHe wanted people to be able to see the kitchen and watch the whole cooking operation unfold or to smell how all of the flavors played out.bNo value assignedOn the other half of St. Cecilia, a sweeping, open bar spills into a lounge area connected to more formal seating along a wall of windows to give diners a range of options. bToday, a dining experience is just that: an experience,b Robinson says. bPeople arenbt just going to a restaurant to eat dinner anymore. A restaurant used to have just two-seat tables, four-seat tables or booths. Now you have communal tables, intimate areas, lounge seating, benches. People want different experiences.bOf course, in todaybs hyper-digital world, an experience isnbt really complete without some kind of documentation on social media. In addition to asking about the restrooms, Robinson says diners are increasingly asking, bWhere are the bInstagrammableb moments?b At the recently opened Bon Ton, a New Orleans-meets-Vietnam bistro in Midtown, itbs surely the exposed brick wall accented by the phrase bFancy Serviceb in neon red lights. At Bone Lick BBQ on Edgewood Avenue, itbs the Vegas casino-style sign that spells out the restaurantbs name in vintage neon lettering. And at Kimball House, arguably one of the most beautiful new restaurants to have opened in recent years, itbs the bookshelf-style bar, complete with sliding ladder, thatbs reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, except the books have been replaced with booze bottles. bYou only get an hour to grab diners,b says John Bencich, co-founder of Square Feet Studio, the design firm responsible for Kimball House and a number of other Atlanta restaurants. bYou really have to inspire people with design or else theybll sit down, eat and think, bYeah, I donbt really need to come back.bbNow may be as good a time as any to master what kind of design resonates in an increasingly digital world: both Smith and Robinson predict the next wave of big restaurant trends will likely include a technological element, not unlike the iPad menus seen at several airport restaurants today.No value assignedBut as much as designers are focused on future trends, theybre also drawing inspiration from past and present structures. Kimball House and Staplehouse, two of Square Feet Studiobs most high-profile projects, are both housed in renovated buildings b a train depot and general store, respectively b that preserve much of their original finishes and materials. Bencich has also witnessed a resurgence of love for neighborhoods, undoubtedly boosted by more walkability thanks to the Beltline and multiuse complexes like Ponce City Market. bMore and more, people want to be in their neighborhoods and walk to dinner, as opposed to driving to a destination restaurant,b he says, adding that this shift is being reflected in the way residential developers are now considering what surrounds a complex. bDevelopers are getting smarter. Theybre not thinking about buildings as four stories of apartments and whatever else underneath. They realize that whatever goes underneath, whether thatbs a retail space or neighborhood restaurants, has to be just as wonderfully designed as whatbs above.b

Wonderfully designed, and as Fry predicts, designed to last. bRestaurants are so expensive to build now, and itbs just getting more and more costly,b he says. bI think youbre going to see fewer flashy restaurants of the month b and more focus on timeless, classic designs.b