hospitalitystyle.com

(2008 November December) posted on Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:55pm EST
Dinner theaters: Rockwell Group and B.R. Guest bring the art of stagecraft to the creation of a barbecue joint and a Mexican eatery

By Matthew Hall

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During its two-plus decades of existence, B.R. Guest has developed a reputation for opening brassy, pump-up-the-volume restaurants. While the cuisines of restaurants run by Stephen Hanson's company vary widely-Mediterranean at Isabella's, Chinese at Ruby Foo's and Italian at Vento Trattoria, for example -- all offer eats in settings inundated with country-appropriate props, sets and décor. This "all the world's a stage" philosophy is shared by Rockwell Group, the architecture/design firm renowned for creating visually seductive restaurants, hotels, casinos, retail spaces and theaters. On top of that, firm founder David Rockwell has created stage sets for Broadway productions of "Hairspray" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," among others.

Given that common denominator, it's no surprise that the two New York-based companies have been teaming up. First came the three-level Ruby Foo's Uptown, whose visual centerpiece is a sweeping theatrical staircase that the restaurant company says "would make Norma Desmond proud." And now, B.R. Guest (whose expansion plans got a major boost last year when it entered a 50-50 partnership with Barry Sternlicht's Starwood Capital Group) has brought Rockwell to the table to whip up two more restaurants: the Wildwood BBQ on Park Avenue South in New York, and Dos Caminos in the glitzy new Palazzo Resort Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

 

City Meets Country

B.R. Guest's barbecue joint, which is designed to cash in on the latest culinary craze wafting through the Big Apple, is housed in a space formerly occupied by the company's Barca 18. That restaurant's tapas-centered menu garnered mostly tepid reviews, and its main dining room was dissed as "an industrial cow barn" by a New York magazine restaurant reviewer.

The city and the country collide again in Wildwood BBQ-albeit in a more sophisticated, subtle fashion that Rockwell designers believe will prove more palatable to diners (and reviewers). "Although barbecue has its roots in the rural south, it has also developed an urban connection over the years," says Rockwell principal Gregory Stanford. "And to make this restaurant appeal to New Yorkers, we knew we'd have to add an urban edge to the traditional barbeque joint."

To achieve that balance, Stanford says the design team began by referencing painted roadside barns, as well as urban factories and garages, to help develop the narrative story for the 4,700-square-foot space. That process, in turn, resulted in an environment featuring exposed concrete flooring, unfinished plywood walls, a reclaimed wood-timber ceiling, and steel-framed garage doors topped with nicotine-stained glass panes behind a 50-foot-long bar.

While the space is mainly brown and black, its private dining room features a red wall fronted by logs on metal shelving. "That wall is directly opposite the entry, so guests see it when they walk in," Stanford notes. "Because the restaurant smokes all of its meat using mesquite wood, we wanted to make that a feature of the dining experience."

 

Multisensory Mexican Experience

While the Wildwood BBQ in New York is the first of its kind (with no word yet from its operator on whether any others are in the offing), the other recent collaboration between Rockwell and B.R. Guest is the fourth iteration of the Dos Caminos line. Rockwell principal David Mexico notes that because his firm had no involvement in designing the first three Dos Caminos, and because the latest one is the first outside of New York, his team was able to approach the project as a blank slate.

"Unlike New York, in Vegas, everything is about entertainment-including the dining experiences," Mexico explains. On top of that, restaurants based in resorts like The Palazzo work to capture repeat business from guests during a given stay or in successive visits. Those factors, in combination, "meant we had to map out a space with multiple layers, so that each time a guest returns, there is something new to see, experience and interpret," he says.

In keeping with Dos Caminos' Mexican cuisine, the Rockwell design team wove multisensory experiences into the 17,000-square-foot space that pay tribute to various parts of Mexican culture and legends, including Tijuana, Mexican roadside bodegas, Mexican crafts and the Day of the Dead, Mexico says.

That explains the "snake lounge" just inside the restaurant's hand-hammered iron gate entrance. The lounge is outfitted with long, curved banquettes upholstered in leather and topped with mohair pillows; at the rear of the space is an abstracted landscape of a Mexican village. "The lounge is all about procession, taking the guest on a journey of Mexican craft," Mexico explains.

The main dining area, meantime, is "an exploded bodega of Mexican art, posters and stimuli," Mexico says. The walls and ceiling are covered with panels taken from the markets of Mexico, including street art and found objects with imagery of classic Mexican cinema, wrestling and food. The most startling visual touch in this area is the niche within one of the dining room walls that's covered in cast-sugar skulls, Day of the Dead treats from the streets of Mexico.

The main dining room is separated from a smaller rear one by a replica of an ancient Mayan temple of fire in carved stone with rows
of flickering candles and inset ornaments. Candles also play a central role in the rear dining room, where their flames reflect off copper-colored glass.

"The basic idea was to create unique dining and entertainment zones for a wide variety of demographics and party sizes," Mexico says. "That includes a voyeuristic lounge environment with drinks and appetizers, a perched viewing area with margaritas and chips, a see-and-be-seen bar for beer and enchiladas, and a lush, intimate setting or a fantastical dining atmosphere for traditional Latin American dishes served with a twist."