Hospitality Design - March 2012 - 48

perspectives

trends: ne dining

Votive walls separate dining areas at Wit & Wisdom, a Tavern by Michael Mina.
of crashing waves, and a delicately veined onyx bar. “We wanted it to be a subtle use of natural materials,” says Bentel.

Wolfgang Puck’s intimate dining alcove at the Hotel Bel-Air.
spent time thinking about gardens ﬁrst, and shaped and tailored them to all the spaces we were working on. Whichever space you are in, you feel these magical gardens,” he explains. Shrunken interiors are now anchored by the likes of a Carrera marble ﬁreplace. There are teak wood ﬁnishes, Spanish metalwork, and power booths overlooking the property’s revered swans. In the private dining room, a glass blown and polished brass chandelier is loosely inspired by tree branches. “It’s a very beloved property. It has a deep history with the people of Bel-Air. We wanted to keep the authenticity intact but show there’s something new,” Sullivan says. “We’re most proud of knowing how to blow the dust off and capture that Bel-Air sense of casual luxury.”

Old is New Again
Timed with Clio’s milestone anniversary, Niemitz was once again tasked with interpreting chef Oringer’s mission—this time to create a chic interior that feels more relaxed. While the “bones of the room did not change,” Niemitz assures, signiﬁcant changes were made. “It never clicked,” he says of the old stone and mahogany bar, now showing off a walnut top and frosted glass. “The new bar is double the size and created a whole new energy point.” The dining room, awash in pale taupe, is all one color now, a monochromatic background punctuated by contemporary artwork purchased at Art Basel. Uni, the sashimi bar at Clio, also features a more sharply deﬁned entrance and identity. “Nothing was wrong, nothing was broken,” Niemitz says. “The difﬁculty was making it better without ruining what we had.” Finding balance between tradition and modernity was also the approach favored by New York-based Rockwell Group when designing Wolfgang Puck as part of the highly anticipated Hotel Bel-Air renovation in Los Angeles. “Luxury is an evolution, just like fashion. I think the Hotel Bel-Air is the perfect place for its elegance in its own simplicity, and how it ﬁts into its own environment—it has a sense of place,” says Puck. Shawn Sullivan, principal and studio leader at Rockwell Group who worked on the restaurant (New York design ﬁrm Champalimaud handled the hotel), agrees with the proliﬁc Austrian chef that its surroundings deﬁne the hotel: “The soul of the hotel is its outdoor dining space. It’s the place where Nancy Reagan had lunch, where movie deals were made. The interior space was a difﬁcult sell; it’s hard to compete with Mother Nature.” To alleviate the problem, the Rockwell Group team grounded the indoor in the outdoor at Wolfgang Puck. “The Hotel Bel-Air truly is smaller scale experiences scattered in a larger landscape. Once you go through the gate, it feels disconnected in a special and private way. We

Historical Context
One of the most impactful ways of exemplifying modern luxury is by linking design to its environment. This is what inspired Frank Frost and Wendy Tsuji of Frost-Tsuji Architects in San Francisco when designing Wit & Wisdom, a Tavern by Michael Mina, at the brand new Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore. For this project, the long-time Mina collaborators (they worked on his original Aqua in San Francisco, and when the space became Michael Mina) channeled Maryland’s past and its Chesapeake roots, complementing Mina’s Mid-Atlantic-centric menu focusing on local, sustainable products. “We really tried to select materials and speciﬁcations that reinforced this idea of the historic tavern,” says Tsuji, noting the use of white brick and hand-scraped wide plank ﬂooring crafted from local Appalachian hickory. So the carpet stays true to the pre-Revolutionary War era, Frost and Tsuji speciﬁed one that isn’t color dyed, in charcoal gray wool. Along with the curved window wall that Tsuji says is in keeping with the Four Seasons’ ﬂair for simple and elegant, another highlight is the row of four votive walls comprised of handblown glass hurricanes. The bar, with its copper bell suspended above, is a centerpiece, and once again the material, in this case a countertop built from one single walnut tree, pays homage to its location. “Luxury,” says Tsuji, “is the ability to draw on history.”

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - March 2012