Client: David Chang, Momofuku NYC
Design: The Design Agency
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Size: 613 sq m
Completion time: 12 months
Photos: Bob Gundu
North America is home to the biggest financial districts in the world with Toronto named as the second largest financial city in the region after New York, some 500 miles away.
The Noodle Bar sits in a double-height space with the Momofuku signature white-oak bench seating
The economy of Toronto has remained fairly intact on the whole, largely due to the city’s successful commercial, distribution and financial industries. A sprawling city, it boasts exciting architectural developments influenced by its unique culture and economy.
The city also draws in large numbers of visitors and tourists to experience its numerous shopping malls and ethnic markets, as well as catering for the city’s own large Chinese population. The city’s multicultural diversity makes Toronto home to a wide range of cuisines, as well being renown for the quality of its restaurants. And now it has seen the opening of Momofuku, an Asian fusion cuisine destination already in New York, now located in the Financial District yet conveniently accessible from Chinatown in Toronto’s city centre.
Arthur Umanoff stools and slatted wood wall and ceiling feature in the Nikai lounge
Momofuku’s largely Asian design influence is marked at the entrance with a 20m-long stainless steel sculpture, Rising, by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. Enclosed in a three-storey glass cube the restaurant aims to offer the ‘great Momofuku experience’, represented through four concepts – starting on the ground floor with its Noodle Bar.
On arriving diners are immediately greeted by a double-height space with textured white-oak walls and intersecting blackened steel foot bridges, over-looking from the second floor. Seated at the restaurant’s signature white-oak benching, Allen Chan, a senior partner at The Design Agency, talks through the project’s palette and material choice: ‘We felt strongly that the materials used should reflect the richness of the food, and the "rawness" of Momofuku’s style. We developed a palette of elemental materials, keeping them honest to the brand and the space.’
A painting by Steve Keene adds a splash of colour
With concrete, white oak, raw hot-rolled steel, glass and stone comprising the majority of the material palette, a colourful painting of Neil Young at Madison Square Gardens, by album-cover artist Steve Keene, adds colour to the Noodle Bar space. Chan says that ‘to create a space with four concepts that were different, but worked together, became the focus of how we articulated the materials. In a lot of ways, the scale and location of the spaces determined their programme.’
Nikai, situated on the second floor, is a more intimate bar and lounge accessed through opaque panelled sliding doors that resemble shoji screens. The white-oak walls are in keeping with the material palette, but are off-set against the Asian-influenced architecture and comparatively cosy room size. Further still, Nikai marks its identity with Arthur Umanoff stools and custom-designed leather sofas, was well as locally sourced retro furniture. The same-but-different language to directly link the Noodle Bar and Nikai is aided by the visual introduction of a wood-slat wall that connects the two spaces.
As visitors reach the third floor, the wood-slat wall peters out, leaving behind the warm space of Nikai and introducing the airy contrasting space of Daisho. A bustling ‘family style’ restaurant concept with city views, Daisho offers communal seating that caters for parties between four and 10 people. Handcrafted Hiroshima chairs from Maruni sit at a bar made of black oak, accompanied by tables with carved bases. At night Excel chandeliers from Rich Brilliant and Willing light up the space, setting the ambience both internally and externally.
Shoji-style sliding doors access the Nikai lounge
Adjacent to Daisho is the open kitchen of Shoto where patrons can enjoy a ‘back-stage’ experience, encapsulated by the wine store fridges. Shoto is described by Chan as the ‘inner sanctum’, identifiable by a high-gloss black monolithic look to contrast the white plates and uniforms of the chefs in action. Catenary bar stools from Token sit at a black granite bar, where up to 22 guests can enjoy a chef’s tasting menu.
‘From the Momofuku operations standpoint, the main thing they wanted to create was a great Momofuku experience,’ says Chan. ‘The experience, which is a combination of food and design, is what this place is all about. There’s a real complementary synergy between the food and the space, and that’s hard to come by.’
Words by Emily Martin
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