North Audley Cantine in Mayfair, London, inaugurated in late 2013. It has become a modern and trendy hangout for Bond-Street customers and the after-work gathering to enjoy French-style shared meals, desserts, and bespoke cocktails.
By the fall of 2017, the three owners of North Audley Cantine, childhood mates, David Bellaiche, Gabriel Cohen-Ella and head chef Jeremy Coste, were ready for some modifications. The basement bar, acknowledged as Chez Chow was inspired by Teddy the Chow Chow, the pet of one of the owners. It was odd and mysterious and needed a facelift.
The partners wanted the bar to remain to be unquestionably distinctive from the ground-floor main luxury restaurant that has a fresh, pared-down décor with white-washed brick walls, marble tables, stark light fixtures, and leather seats.
Designers Christian Ducker and Tyeth Gundry of London-based Gundry + Ducker adopted an encouraging, pastel pink tone for the 34 square-meter, low-ceiling, windowless area for North Audley Cantine.
The designers used rounded forms, rich-blue velvet seating booths, light marble table covers, bright-blue flooring, see-through walls, mirrors and bespoke lighting – all by Gundry + Drucker – to conceive a contradiction for the floor above and to open up the dark bar.
“During the design phase of North Audley Cantine’s design project we were interested in 1940’s Hollywood for its combination of optimism and glamor, a deliberate contrast to the rough wood/industrial aesthetic still commonplace in London,” explains Tyeth Gundry.
The basement bar now seats 22 people in an airy and luminous environment that makes space look much bigger than it actually is.
Photography: Andrew Meredith.
Source: The Cool Hunter
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