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Table Talk

If you've eaten at a trendy New York restaurant lately, it may well have been a David Schefer Design project. What's the word on the street?

Bonnie Schwartz -- Interior Design, 6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

In the five years since architect David Schefer and interior designer Eve-Lynn Schoenstein left the Rockwell Group and started David Schefer Design, the husband-and-wife team has attracted a bevy of high-profile clients. David Schefer Design's first commercial project, Moomba, instantly became the celebrity hangout of choice, putting the New York firm front and center in an overcrowded city. But Moomba was only the start. Soon Schefer and Schoenstein had designed such bars and restaurants as hip Veruka, Vietnamese-themed TanDa, sleek Commune, cool Commissary NY, and comfortable Elmo. With several ongoing hospitality projects in Philadelphia and the firm's first freestanding house about to be completed in Shelter Island, New York, David Schefer Design is expanding conceptually and geographically.

Designing New York restaurants, whose half-life is about half a second, must present challenges. How do you give a space staying power?

DS: When we go into any project, we always expect it to last. That's the hope, anyway. We attempt to use design to distinguish the spaces, so that people will want to return there regularly.

ES: When we did Moomba, we knew the celebrity-driven strategy was going to last only so long. But other places we have done, like Leshko's in the East Village or Elmo in Chelsea, are neighborhood spots that we expect to stay around.

What's the first question you ask a client?

DS: Restaurants are so complicated that we have to start with the basics. How should the kitchen be set up? How will service work? Then we get into a conversation about the feel of the project. Does the owner see it as a late-night place, a relaxed, neighborhood place, an after-work place? Next we begin to develop a visual language, using materials, textures, and images to create a vocabulary we all understand.

ES: We do a ton of color Xeroxing and mock up image boards showing color palettes, material choices, and textures, and we often clip pictures we find in magazines. This step is critical, because it's when we develop the language that ultimately determines what goes into a project and what does not. It's a filter. "That's so Elmo," we'd say when we saw a piece of furniture or fabric. Or, "No, that's not at all Elmo." The spaces become characters. Once we know their personalities, we can determine what they would and would not like.

You've worked with budgets of less than $150 and more than $350 per square foot. Now that you're better known, do you plan to leave smaller-budget projects behind?

ES: We're happy to work within our clients' budgetary frameworks. Of course, because we love our clients so much, we always want to do as much as we can for them, which would often mean more money. But in the end, we're proud to do something that looks great for less.

DS: Small budgets don't scare us. We loved doing Elmo and Leshko's, for example.

A 7,500-square-foot house on Shelter Island is clearly different from a narrative-based restaurant. Do you create residential narratives, too?

DS: We do, although it may not be so obvious. The Shelter Island house was designed in the '40s by the experimental Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg. It was built for a family in the railroad business, and it was literally made of train cars. Most of it wasn't salvageable, but we did keep the original stone fireplace and a stone wall. We built a new structure around them, using the idea of the train cars to guide us.

ES: We pretty much have to have a story to work with. If we don't have a story, there are too many options. The narrative focuses us.

Themed environments can seem kitschy, but yours are rather pulled-back, imbued with a modern sophistication. Is that deliberate?

DS: Yes, I would say it is. Tangerine, a Moroccan restaurant we did in Philadelphia, is a good example. We didn't use literal Casbah-type forms and images, but the Moroccan tradition is visually so rich that we adopted the language and then abstracted it.

As in many Rockwell Group projects, lighting plays a key role in your spaces. Did you learn that at Rockwell?

ES: We learned so much at Rockwell, and how to use lighting was one of the greatest lessons. Lighting is so important. It sets the mood and animates a space.

What is the idea governing your latest New York restaurant, Fred's, on the ninth floor of Barneys?

DS: Fred's has a garden theme—although we didn't put big green palm fronds everywhere. We referenced the natural world without banging you over the head.

ES: We designed a slatted teak ceiling, floored the space in stone, and made custom light fixtures out of metal garden rails. It registers on a more subconscious level.

What sorts of projects do you hope to attract in the future?

ES: We enjoy high-end residential work because you can do really beautiful details like custom door and cabinet hardware. We also enjoy retail.

DS: We love mixing it up. Whereas now our portfolio is very restaurant-rich, if you came back and saw it again a year from now, you'd see much more residential work.

What aspect of what you do is the most fun?

ES: Having clients who are really into the design process.

DS: Some designers think it's better when the client just leaves them alone to do their thing. We're the opposite. The more our clients are involved, the more they challenge and push us. And the more we usually learn.