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Katsuya
By : Rockwell Group
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Interior Design
Categories : Accommodation, Restaurant & Bar / Restaurant > 1,600 sq.ft. (> 500 sq. m.) : Gold Certification
Located within a 17-story office building at Manhattan West— the ambitious new development between Hudson Yards and Penn Station—Citizens is a dining and drinking complex with two full-service restaurants, multiple bars, and a fast-casual food hall offering elevated culinary experiences for local employees, tourists, and neighborhood visitors. Katsuya is one of Citizens’ two feature, fine-dining restaurants, and is the first New York City location. Conceived by Master Sushi Chef Katsuya Uechi, the restaurant features a sushi bar, several indoor dining rooms, an outdoor dining terrace, and a robata grill.
Katsuya at Citizens blends several traditional Japanese aesthetic traditions—kumiki (wood joinery), urushi (lacquer), shōji, wagara (decorative patterns), kabuki (theater), torii and pagoda (religious architecture), and sumi-e (ink painting) and ukiyo-e (“floating world”) prints—with contemporary Western restaurant design. In this way, Katsuya at Citizens invites its guest into a world of refined theatricality, evoking the past and something of the present.
Approaching the restaurant from the Citizens food hall, guests are taken on a progressive journey that leads from the sushi bar and lounge into a linearly arranged series of three dining areas, plus a private dining room. There is an outdoor dining terrace at the end of the restaurant’s hallway-like arrangement, which seats almost half as many guests as the indoor dining rooms. In total, Katsuya at Citizens will boast nearly 7,000 square feet of space and accommodate 305 diners.
A diversity of dining experiences awaits guests at Katsuya. The sushi bar and lounge is the first destination for those looking for a light bite or a sushi-only meal. Moving into the central dining area, a communal table and a handful of two-tops are ensconced behind a series of printed glass screens, flanked by three Hollywood banquettes. In contrast to this feeling of enclosure and exclusivity, the dining room to the right—intended to accommodate small to medium-sized parties—is painted a warm cream color and features linen drapery on either side, creating an open and airy environment. The final indoor dining area includes two-, four-, six-, and eight-top tables, as well as a robata grill, a specialty that Katsuya founder Chef Katsuya Uechi is renowned for pioneering in the West. At the end of the hall there is a private dining room that can sit ten. Finally, the terrace dining area seats up to 98 guests across two- and four-top tables, lounge seating, and an outdoor bar.
Katsuya at Citizens is bursting with references to several rich traditions of Japanese craftsmanship and artistry. This attention to culturally significant markers is apparent from the get-go; the restaurant’s entryway, painted in a deep red color of urushi lacquer, evokes the upwardly curved lintels of torii gates or the dramatic swoosh of a pagoda’s roof. The word “Katsuya” is laser cut out of the curving ceiling panel, nodding to a fundamental Japanese art and interior design concept called ma, or negative space.
Moving into the sushi bar, the deep red color coats the floors, ceiling, and the bar itself. The lounge tables opposite the bar are separated by three ribbed glass screens with a blue-to-red ombre effect, which are meant to echo the translucence of shōji paper in a modern material. A custom wallcovering by Moss and Lam Studio adorns the sushi bar’s back wall.
The interior dining rooms take a maximalist approach to Japanese aesthetics, an entertaining departure from the contemporary minimalist vogue. The printed glass screens re-appear in the central room, hung from blackened metal bracings evocative of kumiki joinery. A communal table, finished with red lacquer, is illuminated by a custom chandelier with a lazily undulating form that appears like waves rendered in ink. The standout feature of these three rooms is the series of portals that delineate between them. Organic in shape and yawning in scale, the portals are framed by red lacquer panels and the wooden insides are treated with a vermillion stain. Ornamental kumiki joinery in black powder coated metal is affixed to the ceilings of the flanking dining rooms. Fans, and the performers who historically danced with them, emblazon several walls. Finally, the checkerboard pattern on the oak wood floor is a direct reference to kabuki theater, as this pattern was named after a popular Edo period actor (Sanogawa Ichimatsu) who frequently wore it. Other wagara patterns, like kikkou (tortoiseshell) and kagome (basket weave), add a sense of dynamism.
The intimate, 10-seatprivate dining room is located between the dining room and the terrace. The centerpiece of the PDR is a photographic print by Erik Madigan Heck titled “Without a Face 13.” A checkerboard wood floor, wood paneling, and a red tonal fan pattern wallcovering add warmth to the space.
Outside, the terrace dining area looks to autumnal Japanese gardens for inspiration. The color palette is mostly organic and muted, with the exception of bold Japanese maples adding a dash of red. Teak furniture, soft upholstery, and portable table lamps create an ambience of relaxed elegance.
Collaboration
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