Frisson

Attaining a certain frisson is supposed to be  an accident of chemistry rather than an achievable scientific quest: there are plenty of restaurant that have good design or good food but fail to create any electric charge amongst the customer and can consequently feel dead as a dodo. You can hire the right chef, the right designer, the right mixologist and sommelier, spending a fortune along the way, but dinner guest can end up sitting there in joyless vacuum, even though they might appreciate the various individual components. By calling itself Frisson, this new San Franciscan restaurant and bar could have been asking for trouble, but somewhere along the line, the team behind it has secured the magic formula: the atmosphere fizzes with possibilities.

It helps when you get all the principal elements right. Frisson, which opened in 2004, started life with acclaimed chef Daniel Patterson-famous for his obsession with aromas and working with perfumer to design dishes-and now has Sarah Schafer, who has added her own touch originality to the New American menu, at the helm. Meanwhile, Duggan McDonnell, Frisson's award-winning bar chef, has created an innovative cocktail menu inspired by California's rich variety of the fresh produce, “New Classic" includes his Renaissance Negroni, with sweet vermouth replaced by Liquor de Poete, as specialist pear brandy liquor created locally in the Bay Area.

The good food and drink help make the atmosphere, but the design has played huge part in setting the social tone at Frisson. In the last few years both Fabio Novembre and Karim Rashid, two of the world's leading designer, have explored the means of creating a dynamic social atmosphere in bars and restaurant though furniture design. At the restaurant of Novembre's Una Hotel Vittoria in Florence, all the dinners sit at the same S-shaped table, which means that each individual is seated opposite several sofas which can be linked to form amorphous circles or wiggles that bring out the possibilities of social interplay. At Frisson, the designer Scott Kester and Architecture TM have created a rotunda, which immediately has the effect of collectively embracing all the individuals groups held within. Kester inspired by the golden age of Art Decoi cruise ships where life was structured around sociable ballroom dances and dinner events in luxurious surroundings. At Frisson, all the details encourage the sense that although people might strangers, this is a shared experience. Within the main room, which is centered on a circular dome decorated with aureoles of illuminated perforations, the sight lines are completely without interruption.

The walls of the rotunda are formed by an outer circle of banquettes and three screens of semi translucent overlapping resin panels which create an interesting, fractured texture and offer a color contrast to the warm orange and browns of the furnishings. The principal seating is made up of wool-covered, semicircular banquettes with mahogany backs, designed by Kester.In the middle, all the banquettes are connected to central hub, so they are like tentacles reaching out into the room from the same mass-very inclusive, very sociable. They are accompanied by Visitor chair designed by Eero Saarinen and walnut tables, thereby merging contemporary innovation. 20th-century  classic design and the materials of traditional luxury in one fell swoop. Frisson has a connected bar area, featuring hexagonal ottomans designed by Kester and dominated by an artwork by Catherine Wagner set above the bottle display. Called Flux Destiny, it is a 24-foot photographic mural of champagne bubbles. The bar has its own cocktail-life, but interaction with the main dining space is continuous, with moment glimpsed through the spaces in the resin-panel screens. The bar lives on after the restaurant stop serving, with the banquettes of the main dining space helping smooth its transition into lounge. Elsewhere, as has become customary in fine restaurants, there is a chef's table, here set in private room which opens onto the kitchen. An intimate, sultry mood is created by brown leather and dark tweed, but a shaggy, coconut light provides a touch of humor. The restroom is unisex, adding another touch of frisson.