Share this on

Orient Express

It's fast-track to fabulous at Shibuya, Yabu Pushelberg's restaurant in Las Vegas

Stephen F. Milioti -- Interior Design, 1/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Nearly any designer can do Vegas. All you have to do is don your sequined thinking cap and channel your inner Siegfried & Roy. With a generous budget and even a modicum of autonomy, you can unleash your creativity and go happily over the top. A more difficult feat, however, is to find a balance between glitz and bliss, fake and natural.

With the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino's new Japanese restaurant, the hospitality pros at Yabu Pushelberg have achieved that magical midpoint. "The design speaks of where Japan is today, forward-thinking yet respecting tradition," principal Glenn Pushelberg explains of Shibuya, named for a fashionable district in Tokyo. Indeed, the 7,000-square-foot L-shape restaurant—the firm's second in Sin City—incorporates futuristic elements with those that are classically Japanese.

The journey begins in the hotel's main level, with Shibuya first glimpsed through a veil of floor-to-ceiling glass panels etched with a "bar-code" detail. Straight ahead, through the entry, the sushi bar's 50-foot-wide focal wall explodes with a changing video show that manages to unify spectacle and subtlety. The wall's surface is composed of mirrored acrylic cubes, placed seemingly at random within a grid. Colors and images come from 18 individual television sets installed behind.

Yabu Pushelberg intentionally used several smaller screens, as opposed to a single large one. "Fragmented images are the magnet for the restaurant," says principal George Yabu. And rather than going with high-resolution plasma or LCD, the architects opted for trusty old technology: In addition to keeping costs under control, the cathode ray tubes cast a 'softer glow on the black-and-white ersatz marble form of the bar below.

Synthetic materials act as accents throughout the space. Horizontal rectangles of pink acrylic are set into the rosewood sliding doors of the semiprivate dining room adjacent to the sushi bar, at the top of the L. In the 150-seat main dining room, the base of the L, a sake "cellar" fills a corner with transparent pink acrylic shelving, and oblong pendant fixtures of clear and frosted pink acrylic hang above the hibachi bar.

A semicircular structure, the hibachi bar offers meat, fish, and vegetable teppanyaki cooked on a grill. Three grills are in operation, and smoke is controlled by stainless-steel hoods—reflected in the bar's polished black marble top.

In every area at Shibuya, synthetic and electronic are tempered by infusions of organic. Tabletops are rough-edged rosewood. Flooring is also primarily rosewood in the sushi bar, gray porcelain tile in the dining rooms. For the latter two spaces, Yabu Pushelberg furthermore commissioned artisans to design a series of sculptural forms in wood.

The same Canadian craftsman designed the geometric stacked wood lanterns, sitting near the sake corner and between tables, and the entire main dining room's pine wall screens, crisscrossing like bamboo strips over a backlit white background. Another craftsman contributed the dining room's ribbonlike vertical plywood trellises, which accentuate the high ceiling, as well as the 'semiprivate room's suspended plywood screens, equally undulating forms that encircle the room's six tables.

Most dramatic—and primal—is the host stand. Standing just to the left of the entry, this monumental form is actually the trunk of a maple transformed by designer John Houshmand, who also made the restaurant's rosewood tabletops. The host stand, placed in its prominent position, is a natural, humanizing touch not often found on the Strip. In consciously artificial, flashing-light Vegas, it's comforting to be able to hug a tree.

Previous spread: At Shibuya, Yabu Pushelberg's Japanese restaurant at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, etched glass panels mark the entry. John Houshmand's host stand is a maple trunk. Photography: David Joseph.

Opposite bottom: In the sushi bar, mirrored acrylic cubes lend dimensionality to the video wall. It derives its changing colors from ordinary television sets installed behind the grid. Photography: Eric Laignel.

Left: The bar is constructed with a man-made stone product. Flooring is rosewood and porcelain tile. Photography: Eric Laignel. Above: Custom leather-covered chairs pull up to the sushi bar. The semiprivate room lies beyond the acrylic-inlaid rosewood doors. Photography: Eric Laignel. Below: Custom pendant fixtures of clear and frosted acrylic surround the stainless-steel hoods above the main dining room's hibachi bar. The wall screens are pine. Photography: David Joseph.

Yabu Pushelberg employed 18 televisions for the 50-foot-wide focal wall. Photography: Eric Laignel.

Opposite top: Houshmand designed six rosewood-topped tables for the semiprivate room. Photography: Eric Laignel. Opposite bottom: Plywood trellises run all the way up to the main dining room's ceiling. Photography: David Joseph.

Above: Plywood screens encircle the semiprivate room. Photography: David Joseph. Left: Next to the sake "cellar," in a corner of the main dining room, stacked wood lanterns emit light through 1/8-inch gaps. Photography: Eric Laignel.

PROJECT MANAGER: MARLYN MCDONALD. PROJECT TEAM: REGGIE ANDRADE; ALEX EDWARD; EDUARDO FIGUERERO; ANSON LEE; SUNNY LEUNG; MARION LIU; MARY MARK; MIKA NAKAZA; PAUL PUDJO. GLASS (ENTRY): SIERRA GLASS. BAR STONE PRODUCT (SUSHI BAR): COVERINGS ETC. WOOD FLOORING: SULLIVAN SOURCE. CUSTOM CHAIRS, TABLETOPS (SUSHI BAR, MAIN DINING), STOOLS (MAIN DINING): ERIC BRAND FURNITURE. CHAIR UPHOLSTERY (SUSHI BAR): EDELMAN LEATHER. DOOR ACRYLIC (SEMIPRIVATE ROOM), PENDANT FIXTURE ACRYLIC (MAIN DINING): CYRO INDUSTRIES. BAR TOP (MAIN DINING): HILTZ MARBLE AND GRANITE. WALL SCREENS, LANTERNS: UMOMO. CHAIR FABRIC: MAHARAM. TABLE BASES: ISA INTER-NATIONAL. TRELLISES (MAIN DINING), HANGING SCREENS (SEMIPRIVATE ROOM): STUDIO SAWADA DESIGN. FLOOR TILE: STONE TILE INTERNATIONAL. CONSULTANTS: ISOMETRIX LIGHTING + DESIGN (LIGHTING); THREE WIDE (GRAPHICS); JAMES ROBERTSON ART CONSULTANT (ART). GENERAL CONTRACTOR: PENTA BUILDING GROUP.