Tony Chi
On the subtlety and substance of restaurant design
By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/1/2002
Restaurant designer Tony Chi is an intense man, full of passion for his work and the philosophies behind it. Since founding his New York design firm, Tony Chi & Associates, in 1984, Chi has been in high demand across the globe, putting his signature on restaurants from San Francisco to Singapore.
The creative force behind stylish spots such as Aqua Las Vegas and Harley-Davidson Cafe in New York, Chi finds time between business obligations to share his thoughts and theories on restaurant décor.
“I’m trying to make design less visible,” says the 44-year-old native of Taipei, Taiwan. “I play a key supporting role to whatever the mission we collectively have. I often talk to staff about how we can create invisible design. How do we create design that becomes a tool to accomplish a message?”
For Chi, the subtleties of understated rather than flamboyant restaurant interiors are essential in creating a look that retains beauty over time.
“Invisible design is what touches you rather than what you see,” he explains. “A restaurant’s look should not be in your face ... it should not have such a ‘wow’ factor.”
His schedule brimming with travel and research, Chi finds little time these days to draft plans for every new restaurant from beginning to end. Still, he oversees each design, often starting and finishing the jobs himself.
Most projects are a team effort for Chi’s staff, which now numbers more than 30. Tony Chi & Associates typically completes as many as 30 projects each year, often working on a dozen at one time.
Typical clients are corporations or hotel companies rather than individual entrepreneurs, mainly due to the cost of Chi’s services. Many, like Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev., and Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, are repeat customers.
For each new project, Chi begins by immersing himself in the location. “I get to the local demographic: I eat where they eat; party where they party; sleep where they sleep,” he says. “I spend a tremendous amount of time researching the local market to develop something not too foreign to them, because anything too foreign to the user is an uphill battle.”
This strategy means extensive travel, as the company serves cities spanning five continents. Chi notes that the regions he visits often have their own design preferences or goals. In the Middle East, for example, concealing alcohol elements often plays a key role in design, as the predominantly Muslim guests do not like to be seen drinking alcoholic beverages. The décor also tends to be slightly flamboyant, with heavier touches and textures. In contrast, he says, Asian choices lean toward a Zen culture, minimal and subdued.
In the United States, Chi points to NoMI, the signature restaurant of the upscale Park Hyatt Chicago, as an example of the current design tastes of some of his American clients. The hotel company sought to create a space that would look more like a neighborhood restaurant than a hotel dining room.
“Clients often use the words, ‘We want [our restaurant] to be warm,’” Chi explains. “They’re saying, ‘We want it to be a friendly restaurant.’ “
To fashion a welcoming environment, Chi used the layout of NoMI to his advantage, creating a feeling he likens to visiting vintage brownstone apartment building. Customers enter the seventh-floor restaurant through a 3,000-bottle wine room, proceeding to a dining room that features Bolivian rosewood, mosaic tile, limestone and leaded-glass cabinetry. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer sprawling views of Chicago’s historic Water Tower, while the display kitchen brings the sounds and smells of Chef de Cuisine Sandro Gamba’s international cuisine to the guests.
“It was as if you carved out a wonderfully designed neighborhood restaurant and put it into a hotel,” says Frank Ansel, vice president of food and beverage for Hyatt International Corp.
Since Ansel first met Chi a decade ago in Hong Kong, the designer has completed Hyatt projects in Osaka, Japan, and Sydney, Australia. He currently is designing four additional restaurants in Tokyo.
“He’s very serious about his work,” says Ansel, who views Chi’s attention to detail as a strong contributor to his success. “He’s a passionate man when it comes to his profession. Tony is involved in every aspect of the design, from A to Z.”
For his own part, Chi describes his approach to design as twofold: “[First] is using design to attract people in the door,” he says. “Second, I believe in understated designs, because I like a restaurant to have inner beauty that can age so repeat customers feel the experience though a course of time. I think that builds a sustaining power in the restaurant industry.”
Wary of trends that fade quickly, Chi chooses instead to combine elements of the past, present and future, creating designs that are, in effect, timeless. And while no two projects are alike, he employs various trademark elements that make each design his own.
“All my restaurants have one thing in common: warmth,” he says. Decorative lighting fixtures often serve “to fill the void, to create a glow, to create warmth.”
Chi also emphasizes the importance of balance in his designs. “You can’t have a warm feeling without a cool element, the yin and yang. You can’t have roughness without smoothness,” he says.
The designer also employs another signature touch: apples, which he often uses in place of more traditional decorative elements such as flowers. “They are functional, and I think they look great. Green, red-they’re very sexy in appearance,” he says.
Although he graduated from New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) with a bachelor’s degree in fine art, Chi says most of what he has learned about design is self-taught, the result of growing maturity and experience.
He was just nine when he immigrated to New York City from Taiwan in 1967 with his parents, brother and three sisters. Growing up on the city’s Lower East Side, he enjoyed drawing-cartoons, school decorations, posters-but it wasn’t until later that he considered design as a career opportunity.
After graduating FIT in 1979, Chi worked with various designers on projects ranging from homes to retail stores to corporate offices. To bolster his income, he continued moonlighting in restaurants, as he had done during college, filling in as waiter, bartender and part-time manager. It was through this work that he was introduced to his future, in a chance meeting with well-known designer Charles Morris Mount.
“Charles was a restaurant designer from the late ‘60s onward. He exposed me to restaurant design for the first time in about 1979, and I loved it,” says Chi. “He really altered my perspective, and I decided to take on [restaurant design].”
Morris hired Chi as a part-time designer that same year. Five years later, Chi opened his own firm.
Today, he estimates that he has designed 500 to 600 restaurants around the world. But despite the numbers, Chi’s star is still rising, and his passion for his work has not dimmed.
“Every project that comes to our office, the client brings in with a black-and-white dream,” Chi says. “It’s our responsibility to give it back to them in a full-color spectrum.”-Allison Perlik
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