Sketch

SKETCH

Opening a £ 10-million, high design emporium of restaurant, bar and gallery spaces in the former head quarters of both the Royal Institute of British Architects and Christian Dior, king of the revolutionary "New Look" is nothing if not brave. However, even though it opened back in 2002, there’s still areal buzz about Ketch, kept alive not by the surfeit of celebrity customer, but by a uniqueness that has survived both criticism and fads. Its success lies in its desire to offer an increasingly design-literate public living, responsive, interactive spaces that really engage while confounding expectations and delighting the senses. Sketch is an enfolding work, with the Glade restaurant and the redesigned Parlour, completed in late2005, the most significant new ventures.

The Grade II-listed 1779 town house on London's Conduit Street is now home to chic, extravagant mélange where the design , good and cocktails combine to offer a fresh frisson. Owner Mourad Mazouz had already found success in London with very sensual Maghrebi restaurant Momo, and here teamed up with co-owner and Chef Pierre Gagnaire, architect Gabhan O'Keeffe and interior designer Noe Duchaufour-Lawrence to create a series of room that continue to have even design-spoilt, world weary Londoners slipping on their most stylish togs. Specially commissioned pieces from some of the world's leading designer, including Ron Arad, Marc Newson and Jurgen Bey, add to the surprise factor and help blur the distiction between gallery and entertainment spaces.


In the entranceway, Ron Arad's one-peace, sculptural chair-desk and Jurgen Bey's grand chairs, morphing out of a wall of elasticized skin, announce that Sketch wears its nonconformity on its sleeve. The stairs drip with different shades of chocolate resin, suggesting the decadence that lies within, but in the end it is the bars and restaurants that have to deliver rather than these introductory showpieces. Fortunately, they do just that principal bars are the East Bar and, just by the entrance, the Parlour, which was originally more of a patisserie but has been redesigned by Mazouz to suit its additional night-time lounge activity. The space is awash with 60 different fabrics and manages to combine elements of a rustic French farmhouse, a contemporary-design lover's living room and touches of Versailles opulance. Well-mounted animal heads, velvet wall coverings and luxuriant day beds rival the strong graphics patterns of the 1960's-style curtains, white kitchen cupboard and wooden chairs with backs shaped as an'0'. Patisserie fare is still available but the Parlour now has an all-day license and is a fittingly relaxed place for cocktail.
The ovoid East Bar, or at least its laboratory cubicles, is probably the most photographed aspect of Sketch. From the outside, the bar is a large white egg surrounded on either side by staircases to 12 individual, enclosed, pod-like toilets. The bar itself, lit with pink neon, is very space age and ambient, with inflatable seating around the wall and a pink, circular counter in the centre. The former West Bar has given way to the daytime Glad Restaurant which, as the name suggest, has been designed as a forest glade. The sprawling, entwining braches of the central chandelier hang over chunky wooden tables and green carpeting. Pierre Gagnaire's menu received stunning reviews as soon as the restaurant opened and the Glade provides a less expensive alternative to the Lecture Room and Library. When Sketch first opened, it was the prices in these, as well as the design, that had some critics slack-jawed. Nowadays, the prices no longer seem so out of the ordinary, but design atmosphere remain unique. Created by Gabhan O'Keffee, the rooms are a critic twist on old-fashioned expectations of opulence. Sunbursts, studded leather walls, stuffed velvet chairs and oversized urns create a quietly disconcerting blend of traditionalism exoticism, which is mirrored by the impressive tasting menus.

Sketch is an all-day event, with Parlour opening for breakfast, and the Gallery providing a free, public art space. Beneath a large, circular skylight, the latter has low leatherette-covered banquettes for customers to watch video art on conjoined screens. At night, the Gallery is transformed into a relaxed brasserie, with the banquettes replaced by white dining chairs and figure -of-eight tables on highly decorated supports. It stays open until the early hours for music, cocktails and video projections.

 Parlour