Craft New York, New York
Tom Colicchio, the chef for whom the architects designed this restaurant, believes that cooking of any kind is a craft, not an art. His culinary plan is to apply uncomplicated craftsmanship to explore the full flavor of each seasonal ingredient and to serve each food on a separate plate, centered on the table for all to share. Hence the name of this precedent-setting restaurant and its namesakes that he has since established — and the Bentel firm has designed — in other cities. Taking a cue from his dedication to craft, Bentel & Bentel sought to create an architectural equivalent to his distinctive culinary approach. “Our goal,” they write, “was to shape a simple yet texturally rich interior that reinforces his aspirations for food and service both functionally and metaphorically.” The space to be occupied was one of the characteristic 19 th -century Lower Manhattan mercantile buildings being widely adapted for new uses. A generous 14 feet high, the restaurant extends back 80 feet from the street, but narrows to little more than 20 feet where essential service demands intrude on its 40-foot width. Of the distinct design elements the architects cite as parallels to Colicchio’s craft approach, the most prominent is the treatment of the structural columns that march through the center of the space. These have been stripped to the terracotta block cylinders laid up in the 1880s to fireproof the steel members within them. Facing each other across the narrowed center of the restaurant are a two-story wine vault, functionally framed in steel and bronze, and a curved wall of Brazilian walnut and leather panels with visible fasteners. Extending across the entire back wall is a commissioned triptych by Stephen Hannock, entitled “Squid Boats on the Gulf of Siam” and dealing principally with darkness and bursts of light. Arrays of suspended bare light bulbs serve as stripped- down “chandeliers” and modulate the loftiness of the space. These distinctive elements help distinguish intimate “communities” of tables without shattering the refectory-like unity of the interior as a whole. And all of the restaurant’s materials, fittings, and furnishings are installed without protective treatments, encouraging natural variations in texture and color as they age. In both its dining concept and its design, Craft has proven to age as gracefully as its time-tested architectural materials.
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