Restaurant & Bar Layout Awards: An award to make the style the most important training course | Lifestyle

The subsequent time you go to a cafe for supper, Marco Rebora wishes you to not only spend awareness to what is on your plate, but also to every little thing that surrounds it. “We likely know the identify of the chef in the kitchen area it’s possible it is Gordon Ramsay or [Ferran] Adrià,” suggests Rebora. “I want men and women to also know the identify of the inside designer.”

This Belgian has set out to bring back the position of cafe designers as benchmarks, decades after an establishment could not be regarded as fashionable if it was not accompanied by the signature of Philippe Stark or Lázaro Rosa- Violán. With this in head, in 2008 he established the Cafe & Bar Style and design Awards, with renowned architects these kinds of as Zaha Hadid or Norman Foster consistently appearing on its shortlist. In its 15 several years of existence, it has long gone from only together with British designers to 90% of entries coming from outdoors the United kingdom. This summer months, the corporation unveiled its initial limited documentary, Dining on Structure, with Dani García’s Smoked Place restaurant and its designers, Astet Studio, as protagonists. In 2024, for the first time, the awards will be offered outside the house of London, in Barcelona.

Rebora is polite and courteous as he sips tea and treats on some shortbread biscuits at The Painter’s Room, the bar of the legendary Claridge’s lodge in London. He chose the location of this interview to highlight a place that does points properly. It was built by Irishman Barry O’Sullivan, and it is an explosion of pastel pink marble, golden chandeliers with shell inlays and an Artwork Deco-model stained glass window. “The area is awesome. Look at that exact element,” he states, pointing to the perfectly put cushions on the leather stool.

In 2001, Rebora started the cafe Neon in Brixton, south London, but it closed following six many years. Then he moved to Wales, in which he created the notion for his upcoming business, the Cafe & Bar Style and design Awards, a mixture of his two passions: foods and style and design. “I had my eureka minute when Tony Chambers, the editor of Wallpaper magazine, replied to my email agreeing to be an awards decide,” he remembers.

The awards have grown to grow to be the highest design and style accolade for the hospitality sector. For Rebora, it is not just about honoring elite establishments: “Whether it is a Wahaca [a British Mexican food chain] or a McDonald’s, I assume style is about using care of every past depth.”

Rebora’s vision is democratic. He envisions the house as prevalent ground that all people can appreciate apart from just having. “Larry Traxler, world wide designer for the Hilton chain, outlined that a cafe or a bar is the most crucial house in a lodge. It is open to the public, even if you can’t find the money for to shell out for a single of its rooms.”

They say that a e-book need to not be judged by its protect. But what about a cafe? “Absolutely,” Rebora claims, smiling. “I’m bored of conversing about foodstuff all the time. Let’s discuss about the design and style of the house.”

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