Wednesday, 07 May 2008 |
With its rich, red interior, Le Rouge restaurant
in Stockholm’s Gamla Stan (Old Town) is a delicious fusion of a
maharaja’s tent, red-light-district boudoir and aristocratic grandeur.
It is not called Moulin Rouge, but it could be. The entire concept is
dramatic with lush drapery, ornamental tableware and lighting fixtures
oozing with bling and tassels.
Le Rouge is the latest addition
to the F12 restaurant empire owned by two chefs, Melker Andersson and
Danyel Couet. The chefs interpret classic French and Italian cuisine in
Le Rouge using fresh Swedish ingredients. The 125–seat Le Rouge
occupies two adjacent buildings, spreads over three-stories and 1,200
square-metres, and includes a dining room, bar, lounge and private
rooms. The concept comes from the talented masters of Gothenburg’s Stylt
Trampoli AB who were using storytelling as a tool to create and
stage-direct restaurants, hotels and resorts long before storytelling
became a design cliché. By Tuija Seipell
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Friday, 29 February 2008 |
Bauer is the newest chic bar and eatery in Södermalm — “Stockholm’s
Soho.” Opened on February 28, 2008, Bauer is a refurbished neighborhood
watering hole on Götgatan’s northern end, an edgy-stylish area
constantly changing and looking for a new form. Suitably, the job of
designing Bauer was handed to Stockholm-based Dizel&Sate,
known for aptly fusing street-art subculture with upscale style for
retail and hospitality clients, including Hotel Birger Jarl, and stores
for H&M, Hugo Boss and Peak Performance. Bold walls are their
signature feature. For Bauer, they took inspiration from the Bauhaus
style and from Berlin’s bar and gallery culture. Bold, graphic images
depicting various forms of enjoyment achieve a casual and fun feel
while punching up the black-and-white space and furnishings. By Tuija Seipell
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
Framebar is a refreshing and stylish gathering place in history-rich Athens. It is located in the St. George Lycabettus Boutique Hotel,
in the chic Kolonaki quarter. The most striking of the bar’s many
redeeming qualities is the furniture. It does not really look like
furniture. It is not an end result of a rule-restricted manufacturing
process, but more like a time-warp, a fluid process temporarily halted.
It gives you permission to sit, although it also appears like it could
morph into something else any time. Architect Dimitris Tsigos calls
this a rearticulation of typical furniture using continuous geometries
and heat-formed starron (corrian equivalent) and the Spanish marble
emperador. The cuisine is fresh and healthy, and the DJs and fabulous
lighting make this a cool night spot. By Tuija Seipell.
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Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
Negro de Anglona
is a stylish restaurant in Madrid created in a converted 17th century
Spanish palace, Palacio de Anglona, by architecture and interior design
virtuoso, Luis Galliusi. Known for his ability to combine unexpected
elements and to create elegant spaces, Galliusi has designed houses,
stores, hotels, restaurants, offices and clinics in Madrid, Paris,
Cairo, Mexico, Morocco, Indonesia and Miami. His client list includes
Manolo Blahnik, Chanel and Phillippe Starck. In the seven rooms of
Negro de Anglona, Galliusi has shown his usual flair. He has combined a
strong, black-and-white color palette ˜ including enormous
black-and-white, back-lit images of castles ˜ with ornate
floor-to-ceiling drapery and other, strong decorative elements. The
task of overseeing the predominantly Mediterranean menu has been
trusted to the 24-year-old chef, Aitor García Cerro. By Tuija Seipell
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Thursday, 17 January 2008 |
Rijeka, Croatia-based architect, Petar Mišković, is known for his
unconditional faith in black and white. He is also known for his
cooperation with Zagreb-based conceptual artist, Ivana Franke, who has
studied and worked in Croatia, Japan and Finland. The two drew
attention in 2004 for their work for the Croatian Pavilion of La
Biennale di Venezia – Metamorph, 9th International Architecture
Exhibition in Venice.
Now those with a sweet tooth and a ticket to Zagreb can enjoy
another example of the incredible pair’s work in the Importance
Galleria Shopping Centre at the corner of Vlaska and Smiciklasova Ulici
(Streets). There, you will find Piece of Cake, a tiny bake shop where
less is more and things are not always as they seem. The space is
shaped like a truncated pyramid and everything in the shop — the neon
tubes, the orange sign and the counter — adheres to the principle of
foreshortening perspective. It feels like an empty funnel, looks cool,
and apparently, the pastries are yummy, too. By Tuija Seipell
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Friday, 11 January 2008 |
They’re everywhere you turn in nearly every corner across six
continents – McDonald’s iconic golden arches have led us to familiar
and welcoming surrounds for over half a century. But even at the
most recognizable burger chain on Earth, change is inevitable.
As we’ve become more health conscious McDonald’s responded with a
selection of salads and fruits. As we’ve become more
international, McDonald’s responded: Norway serves the grilled salmon
McLak, Japan serves green tea-flavored milkshakes, Israel serves
McShawarma, a pita filled sandwich. And now, as we’re becoming
more design-conscious, McDonald’s is responding once again.
Across the globe, McDonald’s is recreating its brand in practically
every way possible. Here at the Cool Hunter we’re obviously most
interested in the design. So now it’s your turn. Have you
come across a cool, fresh recreated McDonald’s out there in the
world? If so, let us know – send us your images to
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
. By Andrew J Wiener.
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Thursday, 06 December 2007 |
The Wapping Project
is the brainchild of acclaimed theatre director
Jules Wright. Based in London's too-cool-for-school east end, it has
been at the forefront of this cities renowned contemporary arts scene
since way back when in 1984, and things are still going strong.
Housed on the banks of the Thames in the Wapping Hydraulic Power
Station - which once generated hydraulic power for Central London, this
is more than simply an arts company. The Wapping Project combines
restaurant Wapping Food, which, like a perfectly choreographed dance
sequence, flows it's way through the Engine and Turbine Houses.
Looking something akin to a Vitra catalogue shoot, guests dine amongst
the gorgeous original brickwork, heavy duty machinery and of course
art, making this for a very unique dining experience.
To achieve a perfect combination between art and food, much like it's
hand picked art's programme, the Chefs are also commissioned by
Wright, propping this to be one of London's most novel and exceptional restaurants.
With a menu that changes daily, an in-house butchery and a quirky,
internationally applauded art's agenda, a visit to both Wapping Food
and The Wapping Project is always going to be a memorable affair. By Brendan McKnight.
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Thursday, 08 November 2007 |
Michael Young
— the Hong-Kong-based British designer of practically everything — has
just designed a startling black bottle for Japanese Nikka Whisky. The
man who in addition to interiors and installations has designed
furniture for Cappellini, lighting for Artemide, barware for Schweppes,
Jewellery for Georg Jensen, polo shirts for LaCoste and bikes for
Giant, seems to be able to find new ways to express old ideas.
Nikka Whisky Co., Ltd
has made whisky since 1934 when Masataka Taketsuru returned from
Scotland where he had became the first Japanese person to learn whisky
making. Japan is now the world’s second-largest producer of single-malt
whisky. One of the most popular in Japan is the 37% Black Nikka whisky,
available at corner stores throughout Japan in tiny, medium and
enormous (as in 4 liters) bottles. Nikka is part of one of the world’s
largest beverage conglomerates, the Asahi Brewery Group. For everything about Japanese whisky, check out Nonjatta: By Tuija Seipell
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Tuesday, 28 August 2007 |
The boutique juice industry is crammed with players already – now you can add a new one to the list. Wild Bunch & Co produces a delicious range of healthy juices including vegetable juices which are bulging with energy boosting vitamins. But our favourite thing about this Singapore based company is the packaging. Smooth and ergonomic, the bottles are like little design pieces decorating your refrigerator. By Billy T
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Monday, 25 June 2007 |
If decidedly unfashionable cuckoo clocks, Tyrolean kitsch and yodeling
form your memories of Austria, update your impressions next time you
are in Innsbruck. It is hard to not look up in Innsbruck, the
provincial capital of Tyrol, with the Nordkette Mountains hulking all
around. But focus a bit lower and zero in on the new Town Hall. The
Dominique Perrault-designed building
is on the Old Town’s (Altstadt) main artery, the 17th century
Maria-Theresien Strasse.
Go up to the rooftop Lichtblick Cafe (also by Perrault) and marvel at
the magnificent 360-degree views. The place is fashionable, sleek and
definitely void of Alpen-kitsch. The walls are floor-to-ceiling glass
and the roof is a translucent membrane allowing daylight through. At
night, the entire cafe looks like a large glowing lighting fixture in
the sky. The 54-year-old Perrault is highly regarded for his ability to allow
landscapes to be transformed but not interfered by his buildings. His
notable upcoming projects include the EWHA Women’s University in Seoul,
Korea (2008), the new Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia
(2009), and the Olympic Tennis Centre in Madrid, Spain (2009). By Tuija Seipell.
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Thursday, 19 April 2007 |
Spain's National Museum, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid opened 15 years ago in a
hospital designed in 1769 by Francesco Sabatini, the court architect to
King Charles III.
The Reina Sofia Museum, named after Spain's Queen Sofia, soon needed
more room and in 2005, it gained a spectacular extension. Designed by
the Parisian architect Jean Nouvel with Madrid's b720 Arquitectos
and Alberto Medem, the 8,000 square-metre (86,000 square-foot)
extension is a full-blown Nouvel with his trademark of constant
interplay of transparency, shadows and light. (This is the same Nouvel
whose work Brad Pitt so admires that he and Angelina Jolie named their
daughter,
Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, after him).
The extension consists of three pavilions arranged around a central
court and covered with a canopy of polished, lacquered aluminum
stretching over from the existing building like a large, ominous
shadow. To allow shafts of light to flow in, Nouvel has punctured holes
into the aluminum plane.
Madrid-based Vidal y Asociados Arquitectos was then presented with the challenge of designing
the interior of the museum's 890-square-metre Arola Restaurant without
hindering, changing or covering any of Nouvel's outrageously bold
building details. The rocket-red, shiny, bulging ceiling, the glass
walls and all the concrete and metal had to become part of the interior
of the restaurant named for its culinary master, two-Michelin-star
restaurateur Sergi Arola.
The resulting restaurant interior defies verbal explanation. The tables
don't look like tables, they are more like parts of an unfinished
experiment. These Band tables plus Sara and RS chairs were all designed
specifically for this space. The lighting -- mainly hidden in the
tables and floors - is wireless and rechargeable so that the wiring
does not intrude the space. All
this light adds to the eerie feeling of things moving and constantly
reflecting each other. The atmosphere is both restless and calm,
dynamic and serene. It certainly does not feel like any restaurant
you've seen before. By Tuija Seipell.
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Tuesday, 17 April 2007 |
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If you want good wine with your food but don’t care for the
wine-connoisseur snobbery, you’ve most likely heard of Yellow Tail, the
wallaby-decorated wine brand that debuted in 2001 and made Casella
Wines into one of Australia’s largest.
San Francisco-based Amazing Food Wine Company is taking the
anti-snobbery even further by introducing Wine That Loves. Just order
your pizza and then the Wine That Loves Pizza, and you are all set.
Others in the line up include Wine That Loves Pasta, Wine That Loves
Roasted Chicken, Wine That Loves Grilled Steak, and Wine That Loves
Salmon. Apparently, Chinese food, and macaroni and cheese will have
their pairings soon.
And no-nonsense does not mean no taste or no sophistication. The wines
are developed with the expertise of former Le Cirque (New York City)
sommelier and Windows of the World (Manhattan) cellarmaster, Ralph
Hersom.
Wine That Loves should be available in a few stores in California and New York by May, and at www.winethatloves.com
by the end of April. Our guess is that this approach will spawn as many
copies as Yellow Tail. After its launch and subsequent success, so many
wines were introduced with various animals on the label that a whole
new category – “critter wines” was born. By Tuija Seipell
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Friday, 13 April 2007 |
When in New York, try Alice Chocolate
at Bblessing (181 Orchard Street). Perhaps you’ll be able to taste the
glacial waters of the Alps or the herbs of the Amazon rainforest, as
both are apparently used to make the chocolate near Bern, Switzerland.
Or maybe you, the shallow consumerist that you are, only notice the
beautiful packaging. Either way, you may be in the presence of a future
icon if Steven Mark Klein and Michael Felber, chocolate makers and
partners in Alice, have their way. The two have taken it upon
themselves to elevate the reputation of “Swiss Chocolate” from
mass-market lowlands to luxury-brand pinnacle, there to mingle with
Chanel No 5, Patek Philippe Calatrava and Hermes Kelly.
Alice Pleasance Liddell, the original Alice in Wonderland (who inspired
Lewis Carrol to write the book), and Alice B. Toklas (Gertrude Stein’s
life companion) and chef-extraordinaire Alice Waters are among the
spunky Alices that inspired the name because they are people who “enrich
the day through their imagination, refinement and enchantment.”
The New York-based partners have their eyes on opening their own stores and plan to start from the top: A flagship store in Tokyo. They are looking for suitable partners, so what’s holding you back? By Tuija Seipell
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Tuesday, 06 March 2007 |
As we’ve already mentioned previously here at The Cool Hunter, ice-cream vans and mobile treat delivery are going to be big this year.
We’ve scoured the neighborhoods to provide you with a selection of what
you might find trundling down your street in the forthcoming months.
Not content with selling their fruit concoctions in shops, the people
at Innocent have created two mobile smoothie-vans to help quench thirst
in the forthcoming months. The first, known as the Dancing Grass
Van (DGV), is a turf-tarnished ice-cream van with matching cow-lined
interior. Oh, and it dances. The vans have a hydraulic system
attached to the wheels that makes it bob around to attract the
attention of potential smoothie-drinkers. They’ve also got Tiny
Grass Vans (TGVs) for emergency fruit cravings around town. These
little pasture clad nippers are perfect if you need a fruit-fix
pronto.
If buying squashed fruit from a grassy van isn’t your thing, Innocent
have also made Cow Vans. Complete with horns, eyelashes, udders
and a tail, these bovine impersonators ‘moo’ on command.
Over to LA for the Hearts Challenger’s candy-colored van selling top
international ice-cream, candy and toys. As part of the
fairy-tale story; boy from country meets girl from city, girl designs
ice cream van to spread fun and magic, boy makes soundtrack to
accompany van and sells fun and pleasure, Lo and Benjamin are obsessed
with spreading the love they have for things flavor-some and fun.
Their motto, “the greatest challenges are ones from the heart” will be
ringing in your ears as the two bring impromptu dance parties to a
street near you.
Packing a more philosophical punch for ice-cream lovers, The Tactical
Ice Cream Unit (TICU) provides a bit more than just food for
thought. With its primary aim to replace cold stares with frosty
treats, the TICU is an oasis for community activists. Supplying
water, first-aid, film, gas masks, water balloons in addition to
ice-cream, who knew caring-for-the-community could be so much fun?
Look out for the TICU around California this spring, Vancouver in the
summer followed by the San Francisco Bay Area in Autumn.
Something for real kids now, the “Own Your C” is a traveling advice
centre for teens unsure about what decisions to take in their
lives. The van travels around rural and mountain communities in
America distributing tobacco cessation leaflets and free advice for
anyone who may need it. All conducted from the C-Ride – a branded ice
cream truck with custom alloys, graffiti paintwork and a freezer full
of C Popsicles. The C message combines social responsibility with
a love for iced treats and will be traveling across America this
summer. By Matthew Hussey
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Monday, 19 February 2007 |
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Sunday - what a terrible day it is. It’s the
day before you have to go back to work, and often the day after a big
night. Past experience tell you it involves either hours vegging
in front of the TV, some banal family occasion, or worse - both.
But thankfully Petersham Nurseries are on hand to
get you out of this familial mess.
Located in leafy West London among flowers and their oak brethren,
this café and teahouse is the perfect place to get away from the
in-laws. Oh, and the food’s pretty good as well. Sourcing
the best local ingredients, and growing most of the fruit and
vegetables in the surrounding gardens, it gives off just the right
amount of homemade nostalgia without conjuring images of your niece
putting mud in the oven.
Potter around the award-winning shrubberies, saunter through the lemon
trees, or sample the herbs growing wild in the herb bed. Sundays
here are what Sundays should be – indulgent. And who needs family
when your fellow diners may include Mick Jagger, Paul Smith and
Madonna. A belly of lamb with mustard and a glass of Merlot, or
screaming kids and burnt gravy - need one really ask? By
Matthew Hussey
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Thursday, 15 February 2007 |
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Gone are the days when surly ice-cream men trawled suburbia with
their diesel spitting vans and bags of flakes. Those travelling
sweet-sellers forever condemned to the cultural quirks of childhood.
Well, almost. Adam Ellis, design director of brand agency Coley Porter
Bell (CPB) has rekindled his love affair with ice-cream in a van and
hopes you will too. Say hello to Scoop.
“I
was inspired when, recently, I bought my four-year-old daughter an ice
cream, and the whole theatre of my childhood came flooding back.
Wouldn’t it be great to relive the excitement of getting butterflies
when you heard that kitsch music playing from around the corner?”
Winning
CPB’s ‘Blue Sky’ competition, Ellis took the £2000 (US$ 3900) prize
money and put it straight into his winning design. “I wanted to
rekindle the magic with a mantra of style with a smile and the ice
cream’s not bad either”, says Adam.
Playing on that sense of
nostalgia, Scoop breathes life into the run down image of selling ice
cream on the streets. Taking a blinged out van fitted with chandelier
and a host of fancy puddings, Scoop brings boutique eating to the
masses. And with flavours including Turkish Delight, organic champagne
and traditional marmalade, it’s not exactly child’s play. Delivering it
all in bespoke cutlery, who said Mr Whippy was just for kids?
So
far Scoop has only been available in London’s East End, but Ellis has
big plans for the summer. “I’d like to do music festivals, art
galleries, weddings, anything with that sense of theatre”.
So kids, I mean adults, what are you waiting for? This is a great business opportunity. Contact us for Adam's e-mail address.
By Matthew Hussey
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