Restaurant Porn is a regular column of daydreams presented as a means to introduce Vancouver diners and designers to concepts, looks, and fully-formed ideas that they might draw an inkling of inspiration from. We do our best to pair the foreign rooms with local addresses so as to let everyone in on the daydream.
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(via) We love the look of Silver, a new 1920’s-inspired Art Deco brasserie in Bethesda, MD. Designed by Washington, DC-based architecture/design firm CORE, the 4,500 sqft space is very close to the look we’d want for the kind of establishment we’d love to see operating at the foot of Vancouver’s iconic Sun Tower in Crosstown. The ground floor currently houses a fitness studio and an event space, but we dare to dream. (For context, we’ve included a gallery of images of the Sun Tower at the bottom of this post.)
Silver’s layout, influenced by a traditional Pullman car diner, has a central entrance, long, narrow shape, with the “counter bar” and kitchen front and center. The bar itself is a show-stopping proscenium that acts as a glowing beacon in the restaurant, creating visual impact from the street. The team chose an updated Art Deco style, which blends notions of streamlining and richness of material and detailing, merging the energy of an authentic diner with a layer of sophistication. The elegant Deco-inspired color palette combines blue, silver, cream, black and Mahogany-wood tones with punches of red. The prominent hand-glazed brick wall tile, common in 1920s-era train stations, adds character and visual texture to the dining room. Custom large-scale brasserie lighting and Chrysler Building-inspired sconces on soaring columns, give the space a warm glow and ambiance for all day parts. This dramatic lighting draws the eye of street-goers and adds to the iconic, alluring design of Silver’s prominent storefront.