“If California is a state of mind, Hollywood is where you take its temperature. There is a peculiar sense in which this city existing mainly on film and tape is our national capital, alas, and not just the capital of California. It’s the place where our children learn how and what to dream and where everything happens just before, or just after, it happens to us.” ―Ross Macdonald
Architecture, Interior Design, and Lighting Design
Los Angeles, California
2019
Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse is a two-level, elegant steak restaurant designed to evoke and to celebrate the glory days of Old Hollywood glamour. Entering from the posh Century City Mall concourse, the guest is engulfed in lavish architectural design featuring geometric marble floors and a sensually curved ceiling comprised of a series of warmly lit barrel vaults. The ribbed glass wall separating the kitchen provides shadowy hints of activity beyond.
The restaurant’s impressive 12,000 bottle collection of wine becomes the backdrop to the private and main dining rooms. Striking crystal chandeliers, inspired by vintage paparazzi flashbulbs, float through the space, sparkling as they cascade through the open serpentine stair to the bar level below. Leather chairs, mohair booths and banquettes, and buffalo hide table tops add to the level of luxury that sets the culinary experience. On the lower level, a folding glass partition system along the exterior opens up entirely, allowing the bar an al fresco overlook of Santa Monica Boulevard, as the temperate Los Angeles climate flows from outdoors in. The stair from the upper level serves as a dramatic backdrop, while wine, decorative art glass and intimate settees line the perimeter, overlooking the scene.
Accolades:
2020 ASID Georgia Design Awards, Commercial Hospitality Restaurants
