RESTAURANT DESIGN PROJECT Once all the machinery had been cleared out, our first impression was that its rectangular shape was reminiscent of a cellar,” recalls the studio’s founder and creative director, Fu. “But cellars are typically located below ground. So, the design proposition became this idea of bringing the cellar up 38 floors into the sky. What kind of cellar would this look and feel like?” The answer is a dramatic sequence of spaces that begins unfurling from the first step into the mood-lit entrance. Burgundyhued and timber-lined, The Cellar’s bijou foyer is anchored by a vaulted ceiling over a smoky mirrored corridor, a round reception table, cast-white metal pendant lamp, and a tufted Persian inspired rug that’s a whimsical homage to the carpetshops of the hotel’s Kampong Glam neighbourhood. A triple-layered archway made of distressed brick is framed by black ironmongery, reassuringly solid timber doors, and teal blue velvet curtains that pull back to reveal The Cellar’s intimate but perfectly proportioned dining room speckled with low-slung kidney-beanshaped sofas and ribbed-back chairs. Underfoot are rugged cuts of dark Italian Cadia Grigio marble and light castle-grey sandstone, and bookending the space are timber display cabinets sheathed with wire-meshed doors. The eye is drawn gently down the length of the room by an arched ceiling in rich hues of deep turquoise embedded with an elegant stretch of oak and copper ribs whose silhouette reminds you, appropriately at this height, of a bird’s outstretched wing, whilst copper shelves, framed by industrial rivets and the soft halo of light reflected through display wine bottles, conspire with copper straps, timber mouldings, and a mirrored clerestory to create the palimpsest of a cellar. Which was the whole point of the design programme - subtlety at work with imagination. As Fu points out, “We were careful to not be thematic, but rather to capture the spirit of the cellar, and which is why the ceilings, for example, are not literal interpretations of a vaulted ceiling. Instead, we have the gentle curvilinear arch of the oak and copper ribs in the main dining room.” At the far end of the room is the small private dining room –, one wall lined by an abstract collage of semicircled timber insets and mirrors, and the other opening dramatically outwards to an aerial view of IM Pei’s Gateway Towers. Continued>>
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