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WORDS Kerry Mahony L ast month, as part of Irish
Design Week, we hosted a panel on Designing for Dining. In the beautiful bar, bistro and bureau Note, we discussed how design can supplement, complement, and elevate a dining experience, and how we can use it to create positive dining spaces. We welcomed Ahmad ‘Acky’ Fakhry, creative director of Note and AB Projects, Cúán Greene, chef, founder of Ómós Digest, and Totally Dublin contributor, and Aoife Mulvenna, art director and interior architect for Crown Creative in Belfast. The talk was co-hosted by Michael McDermott, editor of Totally Dublin, and Kerry Mahony, Totally Dublin’s design columnist. Below is an edited transcript of a wide-ranging, hour-long discussion about all aspects of designing for dining, encompassing personal anecdotes, best practice advice, and more. First, Ahmad reflected on the founding Note, their ambitions for the space, and the process of designing a new dining space for Dublin. AF: Myself, Andy Collins, who runs Indigo & Cloth, and my brother Essa had an idea to do a restaurant, wine bar, something like that. It was COVID and we wanted to create something we wanted to see in the city. It was borne out of conversations where we tried to figure out how we could do it. Through that we started to put structure on it and what it could be. We all had different areas of expertise; my brother is a chef, and he was brilliant. We got lucky enough to find this space which used to be an off-licence and a Mizzoni’s. It was a bit of a mess. We got to take over and design the whole space from scratch, which was good because I was able to do it through my own company and use our connections with builders. Originally we looked at spaces a lot smaller than this, but then this came up and we just thought we’d go for it. It took a little over a year, maybe longer, and we moved the build at a fast pace because we could design it during the lease negotiations. The floor was originally dusty concrete but we had our guy come in and do a test and it revealed this floor which saved us a huge amount of money! We opened October 30 last year and had our first birthday two weeks ago. Aoife gave a run-down of her career as an architect and designer and how she took up her role as an art director in Crown Creative. AM: My background is in architecture, mainly residential and community architecture, and as I started studying I fell in love with hospitality design. I loved the pace, the characters you meet along the way and the variation of the briefs. I found what I loved in doing that. And then COVID hit, which was a bit of a nightmare, and I moved into a joinery manufacturer. This was invaluable, particularly when I was on-site and dealing with tradesmen. From that I ended up completely shifting and joined Crown Creative, who are a hospitality agency. I joined them as an art director-slash-interior designer. It’s been amazing, because I’ve learned throughout my career that you can do all this beautiful work only for someone to slap a hideous logo over it, which is heartbreaking! [In Crown Creative] we have full control over the brand strategy and visual identity which has been phenomenal. In every kitchen, the lighting had to be of equal quality in the kitchen than it was in the dining room. There was mutual respect there. Then, Cúán gave an insight to his background and his thoughts on how design intersects with chefing. CG: I’m a chef by trade. When I think about that, sometimes it feels a little conflicting, as I have so many other interests as opposed to cooking and cheffing. My parents are two wonderful artists and I’ve grown up with an interest and understanding about the importance of design my whole life. In hospitality you get a little bit of everything. You get to interact with people. You get the involvement of the food. There’s a community aspect to it. But there’s also the whole involvement of design that you get to feel every day. It’s something I absolutely love. MMD: Design comes into not only front of house, but also the kitchen and how it’s designed. Now, kitchens can sometimes be glass-panelled and facing the clientele, but if a kitchen is badly designed it can be a disaster. What are your thoughts on that? CG: I’ve worked in some really badly designed kitchens growing up in Ireland but also some very good ones. The great kitchens were when I was starting to travel and working in some really well-designed, inspiring places with amazing people. When I first went to Denmark, there was a requirement that every kitchen must have natural light. And even more, in every kitchen, the lighting had to be of equal quality in the kitchen as it was in the dining room. There was mutual respect there. When you spend 18 hours in a restaurant, it’s great when at least your lighting is on point. [Laughs] Often the counters and painting also were of equal quality to what the customer saw. That’s something that has always stuck with me. MMD: Acky, when you were founding Note, were there any moments when you had to make tough calls? AF: When we opened, we wanted to open as quickly as we could. The toughest decision was to go in without the full kitchen and open as a wine bar. We had a cold kitchen in the corner where our chef could prepare things without heat. He pulled some amazing things out of that kitchen! We essentially didn’t have enough funding to do [a hot kitchen] ourselves at the time. We just had to push ahead with that and it went fine for a while. Downstairs was a bit of a mess, lots of concrete, and no natural light - so thanks for bringing that up Cúán! [Laughs]. We had to figure that out. We now have a main kitchen and a prep kitchen, which works fine. In an ideal world we would have put it upstairs, but you have to weigh up the value of the space, and it didn’t make sense to do that. MMD: I’ve been thinking about collectivism and designing by committee, and the difficulty of managing everyone’s input. How do you balance bringing the client into the project whilst also respecting your own knowledge and skills? AM: I mean, that’s always the struggle. Whenever you get a client that fully trusts in your eye and vision it’s amazing - that’s the ideal situation. Sometimes you do need to fight back a little bit. People always pull out the lights, the chairs, and the finishing pieces that, in my opinion, you notice first when you walk into a space. It’s about ambiance and those things really help to create it. I push back a bit and say not to take away those lights and chairs because that’s where you get the most photographable moments. AF: It’s always a difficult conversation, particularly if they want to spend a lot of money on a chef and pour all the money into the kitchen. 25