2021
Charlottesville, Virginia
Architecture
Interiors
Custom Furniture
Lighting Design
Branding Coordination
Public / Restaurant
Cristina Hernández Villalón
Strauss Construction
City Yard LLC
F Richard Wilton
Dana Thiele, Wyeth Ward, others
The concept for this progressive South American steakhouse was developed by the late Charlottesville food visionary, Wilson Richey. The restaurant is centered around food made on a "parilla," an open wood-fired grill, in an open kitchen. Located in the Diary Market, a former dairy facility, the former industrial space has tall ceilings in formed pre-cast concrete, polished concrete floors and large steel windows.
A large curving plaster and terra cotta tile volume is imagined as a building inside a building. Housing the kitchen, bar and back of house, this "stage" is inserted into the white-washed shell of the former industrial space evoking the sensuous forms and simple materials ofLatin American Modernist design masters such as Roberto Burle Marx. All other elements are lightweight additions such as furnishings and art that allow the flexibility to use the dining space for gatherings and events.
The material palette is made up of earthy materials that are typical of those used throughout Latin America: terra cotta tile, plaster, concrete and ceramic tiles in deep colors.
Custom tables, banquets and tapestry hangers are a design collaboration with Nick Wispelwey of City Yard. The furnishings in stout maple profiles and shades of peach, orange and rust complement the twelve large colorful tapestries, a collaboration between formwork and the artist, Cristina Hernandez Villalón.
