Interior walls are an important design focus, with lighting, color and pattern providing ambiance and entertainment. Surfaces are worked with tile and special finishes. Art and custom fabrications play starring roles. And so do the patrons. Seeing and being seen is part of the experience, and restaurant designers are rising to the occasion.
Cooking is part of the show.
A common assumption among the newest restaurants is that cooking is a performance to be shared. Displays of fresh food or views into the kitchen are almost ubiquitous. Skip Downing Downing, designer of Blowfish restaurant in the Paramount Hotel, began designing restaurants in the era of the Seattle World's Fair. Credentialed as an architect, an interior designer and a kitchen designer, his experience ranges from franchise hamburger restaurants to urbane nightspots. Blowfish, for instance, is shoehorned into a space 12 feet wide and 50 feet long on the ground floor of the Paramount Hotel.