Project Description
Brindille won a James Beard Foundation Outstanding Restaurant Design Award in 2015.
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
After many years searching for the right space for their next venture, the team behind the award-winning NAHA finally settled on an intimate space one block from home that allowed the owners to maintain strong presences in both restaurants. The directive was to create a Parisian-inspired, luxuriously appointed, jewel box of a refined modern restaurant; a place where the cuisine, service, art, graphics, architecture, design and atmosphere were in continuous harmony.
– Brindille was selected as the name, apropos as it is the French word for twig; new growth. That name is interpreted throughout the space, notably in the artwork, light fixtures, materiality and serving pieces.
– Inspirations for both food and design include the great luxury of traditional Parisian restaurants, the refined artwork of Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer, Nature and Urbanism.
– Seeking texture, warmth and modernity; concrete, walnut, stone and antique brass were detailed in warm grey, deep brown and lavender tones.
– The experience begins at the street, where a board-formed concrete bulkhead provides a backdrop for signage and the base for a new, butt-glazed storefront featuring a curved glass corner that leads guests to the entry. It continues into an elegantly detailed, painted wood entry-vestibule featuring chevron-patterned stone floor with a brass wire mesh open canopy.
– A custom, jewelry-store-style host stand of display cases changes seasonally, like the cuisine. One month they might display the latest finds from the local farms, the next the owner’s beautiful collection of antique lobster forks. These cases morph into a linear bar of Eramosa marble, which is juxtaposed by a sinuous banquette of walnut and antique brass that snakes through the space to maximize seating while creating intimate and varied dining experiences.
– A wall of deep plum-colored silk wall covering recedes to accept three oversized custom works of art (paint, carved plaster on wood) portraying a view to the sky from the forest floor.
– Alternating bands of smooth and travertine-finish plaster curve along the back wall to create an intimate round booth with a domed ceiling and globe pendant fixture, a detail that continues the twig with new growth theme.
– We sought to create a space where the details, the service, the bar, the cuisine, the entire experience, all are reminiscent of something you’ve enjoyed in the past, only now everything is modern, more ethereal; to transport the diner into a thrilling urban novel set in Paris during La Belle Époque… by way of Chicago in 2013.