Beverly Hills, California, United States
ICrave Design
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
Tiger is pared down to raw essentials. The menu uses minimal, fresh ingredients to create a unique flavor, bringing
Japanese cuisine back to basics. The design reflects this approach by using a minimal palette of materials to achieve a natural, casual and luminous dining experience.
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
Located on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, Tiger complements a boulevard already bustling with high end retail shops, salons and restaurants with sidewalk seating. The existing space featured an outdoor patio that ICRAVE expanded to twice its size, allowing the design and dining experience to be integrated with the energy of the surrounding street.
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
The outdoor dining patio is enveloped entirely in wood: distressed oak planks with a natural oil finish line the walls and ceiling, separated by gaps that at night illuminate the entire space and the street front with a warm amber glow. During the daytime a large opening in the ceiling allows light to pour into the space until the sun sets in the evening. Japanese inspired fabrics line the banquette seating nooks that are carved into deep pockets in the wood wall. Backlit bronze mirror panels reflect natural daylight and in the evening, the architectural lighting scheme.
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
A minimal, clear glass storefront separates the indoor and outdoor spaces, a design feature that virtually disappears. A textured and polished stone flooring flows from outside to inside, enhancing the seamless transition from the patio to the main
dining room and sushi bar. The main design feature of this interior space is a sinuous bronze chain that hangs from the ceiling, inspired by the curved stripes of a Tigers back. The lighting in the space shines through the metallic links and creates patterns of light and dark on the surrounding surfaces. The rest of the space is composed of textured plaster walls and surfaces of bronze tinted mirror, a subtle backdrop to the ceiling feature and to the crisp lighting illuminating the sushi chefs behind the counter.
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
The furniture throughout the restaurant was all hand made in Mexico. Made entirely of two types of solid wood and stone table tops, the handmade quality of each piece is especially evident in the Tiger logo burned onto the back of every dining chair. Two signature table tops are made of single slabs of wood whose irregular edges have been only smoothed but otherwise left intact. The metal signage at the storefront was also fabricated by custom metal artists and is enhanced by a rubbed bronze detail at the tip of the Tiger logo.
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
The client expressed an interest in sourcing local materials whenever possible in order to reduce the project’s environmental impact. Most materials in fact came from southern
California and the furniture from
Northern Mexico used local, readily available woods.
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| Photo © Courtesy of ICrave Design |
The people
Interior Designer: ICrave Design
Location: Beverly Hills, California, United States
Photographs: Courtesy of ICrave Design
