With touches of bistro styling, a ballroom becomes an intimate restaurant.
In 1910, the ballroom in San Francisco, CA's Bellevue Hotel would fill up with elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen who would dance and dine in the grandiose atmosphere of twinkling chandeliers, massive 30-foot columns and glittering gold and bronze finishes. Today, that atmosphere has been changed to a subdued backdrop for what is now a sophisticated restaurant in the heart of the city's theater district.
The 6,000-square-foot Grand Café was renovated along with the rest of the hotel, which is now known as Hotel Monaco. While there is some overlap between the redesign of the hotel and that of the restaurant, management at Kimco Corp., the San Francisco-based restaurant and hotel builder, wanted the Grand Café to have a unique atmosphere. Thus, a hotel coffee shop it is not.
Inspiration for this unique atmosphere came from La Coupole Restaurant in Paris, France. According to David R. Lieberman, vice president and creative director of Design Development in Tarzana, CA, recreating the intimacy and warmth of this famous French bistro first necessitated toning down the ballroom's innate elegance.
"The details of the room are beautiful and we wanted them to be seen, but be exaggerated," says Lieberman. "There is a juxtaposition between the ballroom and the bistro, which would have been upset had we relied too heavily on the ballroom's detailing."
To counteract the ballroom elements and bring the scale down to a more intimate level, Lieberman developed a non-symetrical design that includes low wall booths, wood paneled walls and ambiant lighting. Colors are coordinated to create what Lieberman calls "that warm San Francisco feeling."
The poured terrazzo floor is a mix of light to dark brown colors set in a flowing Art Deco influenced pattern. Booths and banquettes are covered in a plush brown velvet and framed in finished walnut, and the windows that look out onto the city's busy downtown are casually draped with brown velvet, as well. To complement the warmth of the cherry wood paneling and to enhance the effect of the lighting, walls and columns were faux finished to a golden glow. The arched mirror over the cook line, which is surrounded by an art nouveau framework, reflects and strengthens the finish.
The harlequin diamond pattern on each of the four columns enlarges from top to bottom, and also is painted with a golden faux finish.
"Large columns such as these are usually done in marble or some other gutsy, bold finish," says Lieberman. "We chose a playful pattern as another means of taking that elegant edge off the room, without creating a pretentious environment in its place."
The columns' original gold painted caps were touched up in renovation. Decorative ceiling molding also is original and was left intact where possible. In places where the molding had begun to crack, it was replaced with molds cast from the actual forms used when the hotel was first built, which were discovered in the basement.
Lieberman also found the ballroom's original chandeliers in the basement and considered using them in the Grand Café, but chose to design new custom chandeliers. Less formal than the original crystal chandeliers, Lieberman's Art Deco-inspired design drops down from a long stem to visually lower the 26-foot ceiling. In addition to the chandeliers, stock bulbs recessed in the ceiling were specially manipulated to cast a hot spot with a 12-inch diameter on each table. This was particularly important for creating an intimate atmosphere in the large room.
Art for Food's Sake
The walls and pilasters around the Grand Café are adorned with whimsically painted murals. According to Lieberman, this idea came from a tradition that was practiced for years at La Coupole.
"The wall murals are typical of French restaurants that years ago gave fledgling artists food in exchange for their artwork on the walls," says Lieberman, who immersed himself in research to recreate and interpret the historic look of La Coupole. "Before they became famous, artists like Chagall, Gris and Leger painted on marble columns in exchange for meals."
Nine 40-foot murals that mix themes of food and art were painted by California artist, Charley Brown, while more than 100 pen and ink drawings by San Francisco artists adorn the walls of the 88-seat bar that is adjacent to the café.
The café also features contemporary life-size sculptures: one of a couple seemingly waiting for a table and the other of intricately balanced acrobats with rabbit heads stacked one on top of the other, evoking that more whimsical, carefree feeling rather than the formal feeling that is standard for a ballroom.
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