Eat Drink Design 2015

“Signature dishes, perfectly pitched drinks and impeccable service are an integral part of the eating and drinking experience, but a venue’s interior is an equally important ingredient,” is what the Eat Drink Design panel open with, it’s really what they are looking for.

The Awards celebrate and recognise excellence in innovation and design, be it in cafes, restaurants, bars, or lobbies. With a range of new apartments, investment properties and many off the plan apartments appearing in suburban areas, the importance placed on attractive design when it comes to cafes and restaurants is significantly increasing.

The winners are as follows:

For best bar design:

Smalls by Fiona Lynch Office

Tucked away at 22 Yarra Place, South Melbourne, Smalls whispers when it talks rather than shouts. Moody, modern and comfortable, Smalls offers an artisanal aspect to entertainment. With fine detailing such as Carrera marble tabletops, aged black leather and charcoal velvet upholstery, who wouldn’t want to drink here?

For best restaurant design:

Beccafico by Matt Woods Design

In Waterloo, NSW, a restaurant named Beccafico, located at 8/18 Danks St, offers a complex brief with simple modern Italian food. 

Aided perhaps by the relative neutrality of the new Casba complex in Waterloo by Billard Leece Partnership & SJB Architects in which it is located, the interior was built up layer upon layer and the result is one of confidence and ease.

For best cafe design *two winners*:

Abbots & Kinney by studio-gram

In Adelaide, it’s Abbots & Kinney, offering a cubby-tree house feel, with exposed wood - relying on refined Japanese self-suspension system.

The Kettle Black by Studio You Me

The Kettle Black, located at 50 Albert Rd, South Melbourne, is an airy, refined and perfect - resembling a palace of taste. With a mosaic-floored entry, timbers, gold and brass greet you as you raise your head and look around. It has to be experienced to be believed. 

For best temporary design:

Cafe Di Stasio by Design By Pidgeon

Established as a temporary facade, the blackboard like design makes one of Melbourne’s institutions, located at 31 Fitzroy street St Kilda, all the more mysterious. With a new bar to compliment the boarded facade, the red beams and a ‘sneak-a-peek’ implication only arouses suspicion. 

A vivid vote of confidence for the new Denton Corker Marshall-designed Australian Pavilion in the Giardini of Venice, a project for which restaurant owner Ronnie Di Stasio has long agitated, the installation forms a solid link between art, food, Australia and Italy - the very terrain on which Cafe Di Stasio so successfully operates.