It’s a transformative time for hotel F&B venue design, with individuality celebrated. Leading design expert share their experiences of what’s working in this evolving segment.
Angela Biddle, Director, Scott Carver:
Australian hotel dining has been stigmatised as an underwhelming experience. Often reserved for breakfast buffets and high teas, they are rarely a choice destination, particularly when compared to the country’s vibrant and diverse bar and restaurant scene. However, transformative venues opening across the country are quickly redefining the hotel dining experiences.
Scott Carver is working on several projects, drawing inspiration from successful national venues. The key to the design response is creating a layered experience through a series of unique sub-venues throughout the hotel, encouraging patrons to experience each space and increase their dwell time within the hotel.
The lobby bar of the Hotel Indigo Auckland, currently under construction, provides a lively environment for casual meetings or an aperitif, before being drawn into the a la carte restaurant, followed by post-dinner cocktails in the Level 1 bar, where guests will join in-the-know locals who have found the hidden entrance.
Similarly, we are designing a luxury hotel where a business lunch seamlessly flows into a wine tasting, then onto the rooftop for sundowners, and concluded with a nightcap in the member’s only “after-hours” venue.
Ensuring the interior design considers operational factors is equally critical to the venue’s success. Labour shortages and rising wages continue to impact hotels, particularly their F&B venues. Through strategic space planning, venues can appropriately staff and provide an exemplary guest experience that rivals the city’s best.
Mathew Dalby, Creative Director and Co-Founder, Studio Fab:
I believe the current trends in bar, restaurant and cafe design are more around a unique offering, with the aesthetic as a response to the establishment’s USP.
The iPhone and its customisation on a global scale has opened up a world of choice and individualisation like never before. People are more in tune with finding their own ‘design tribe’. We crave people, products, and environments that actually ‘get us’, which is reflected in the social settings we want to frequent.
Add to this our release back into the world after two years of global lockdown, and you have a perfect storm that celebrates individuality and our desire to share our time with people and places that provide the very best in their field of expertise.
We are seeing specialist Negroni and mezcal bars, Greek loukoumades and Japanese pancake cafes, along with a raft of very niche restaurants that cater for a specific taste and experience.
Regarding their interiors, materiality, form and overall function all play a part in the establishment’s originality.
Generic is out. Let our spaces and places celebrate what makes us unique!