Juniper Restaurant

The concept was a black box theater. The open kitchen is the stage. Everything else is built around the act of watching.

Cravotta Interiors' first restaurant commission. The guiding idea was a black box theater: the open kitchen as stage, the dining room as audience, the architecture designed to hold attention without competing for it.

The walnut bar was hand-crafted, with a plaster wave rising above it that gives the bar wall sculptural presence without announcing itself. The lighting throughout — papier-mache forms over hand-forged bronze cages — was designed by Cravotta. One wall is paneled wood; an artist was commissioned to paint a juniper tree across its full length. The private dining room features a table and chairs Cravotta designed himself, and work by artist America Martin. The restrooms were designed as experiences of their own, not afterthoughts.

Covered in Wallpaper*, The Architect's Newspaper, and Texas Architect. Architecture: Sanders Architecture.