Ember Supperclub

A restaurant should feel like an evening, not a renovation.

For Ember, the brief was to take a 1980s hardware showroom — fluorescent ceiling, retail carpet, two structural columns — and find the supper club that had been hiding inside it the whole time. We rebuilt the space around a single moment: the open hearth at the heart of the room.

The center

Everything radiates from the hearth. Banquettes face it. The bar is offset to one side so the chef's wood-fire becomes the room's natural focal point. Lighting on dimmers; the room gets darker as the evening progresses, by design.

The bar

A solid walnut counter, fourteen feet long, set behind a screen of blackened steel rods so it reads as architecture, not service. The bottles glow through the gaps. The bartender works from the inside.

The seating

Oxblood mohair banquettes — saturated, soft, unapologetic. The room is small enough that every seat sees the fire.

Project complete and operating. Photography forthcoming.