Hospitality Design - October 2014 - 76

perspectives

interview daniel boulud

and jeffrey beers

2. The front bar area at
the newly updated db
Bistro Moderne in New
York, where the backbar
shelving slides in front of
windows looking out on
the street.

connecting communal bar area. Now the bar is
up front at the window, which is so energetic.
DB: It's good to have that in the second life.
For all our restaurants, at 10 years we really sit
down and [examine the] design. We are always
maintaining over the years, and even Jeffrey
gets involved in tweaking sometimes.
JB: Now and then Daniel will have a thought,
and we'll come in and do it. But this one really
took on a different character completely.
DB: We wanted a change-a little bit more of a
classic feel of wood and mirror.
JB: It's more modern French, if I could say that.
The original was a modern abstract of New
York. It wasn't so classic and timeless.

And you just collaborated on a new
restaurant, db Brasserie in Las Vegas at
the Venetian?
JB: It's a much larger restaurant; it's very much

a brasserie.
DB: What I love about Jeffery is his creativity
but also his understanding of proportion of
classic lines and classic materials. In Vegas, we
did the first db Brasserie [at the Wynn], and
it [and this rendition] are very different, but
both were in the right proportion. Designers
are not always led by the one who is going to be
the brand. I'm a little bit more involved in the
design process because I have to live with it. It
was chosen by Jeffery but also agreed with me
in a sense.
JB: There is a special relationship that I
enjoy very much with Daniel in that it's that
respect. I grew up in restaurants. That's how
I found myself trained as an architect. I was
a waiter, a bartender, a manager, and [as a
result] I understand hospitality venues, and I
understand that restaurateurs are really hosts.
They're inviting you into their home. I've
always enjoyed Daniel's passion, his creativity,
his unbelievable talent and excellence, but
he really comes from the heart. When you
work with Daniel as a designer, it's wonderful
because he is so involved, because he wants to

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be, and I am so sensitive because I've worked in
them, and I know what he needs. It has to feel
right. The room has to flow and work properly.
You can decorate a room wonderfully, and
many people can decorate beautiful rooms, but
to design a restaurant properly, successfully,
involves a real engagement between the owner,
the chef, the cuisine, and the design. It's a
real synergy.
DB: We always think of the durability of
materials. A restaurant in New York gets
bruised and abused. Am I going to stack the
chairs in the back, and how are we going to
change the bulb in that fixture? I get involved
in details. It's the maintenance, and it's about
educating the staff to maintain the design.

When do you know a restaurant needs
to be revitalized?
DB: The life of a restaurant should be 20, 25, 30
years-it depends. If you own the place, it can
be a lifetime. If you have a great relationship
with the landlord, it will be forever. But I really
feel out the customer. You want to maintain
the relationship you have with your customer,
keep them excited, and keep them motivated
to come back to see you, and I don't believe the
food is the only thing. The setting is important,
the commitment to the food and the service,
but the design element, it's something that
haunts you; something you live with. You
probably feel [when it's time]. It's not the
customer telling you to change, or the designer,

it's yourself. The refreshment is constant, but
there comes a point where you feel like it's
time to reinvest. We did that for Daniel, we did
that at Café Boulud, we did that here [at db
Bistro Moderne]. I moved Daniel to 65th Street
[in Manhattan from 76th Street in 1999], and
to create Café Boulud, I didn't want to just
change the sign on the door in order to have
a new restaurant. Ten years later, the Surrey
hotel gave us a gallery next door to create
Bar Pleiades, and so that gave us a chance to
remove the bar from the dining room and redo
the restaurant again with Jeffrey. It's a classic
Parisian modern restaurant-simple, elegant.

Let's talk process. After all these years,
how do you work together?
JB: Certainly Daniel will have a very clear

idea, culinary and conceptually of the style, the
feel of the restaurant, the casualness, or classicness of it. He will know the restaurant that he
feels is correct for the location.
DB: Like Singapore, for example. A db Bistro
there had to have more the feel of a brasserie.
JB: He knew his customer in Singapore
and the restaurant needed to be lively and
energetic, with a partial open kitchen, as
opposed to here in New York where that's not
necessarily needed. We start that way and
then we'll look at the plan because it's all about
planning in the beginning.
DB: With Jeffrey, if you tell him, 'I want to
make a spaceship, we're going to have a space

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