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Fit For A Lady

Rebecca Flint Marx -- Interior Design, 9/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

More commonly associated with stilettos than sirloin, the cobblestoned streets of the meatpacking district are now lined with slick drinking and dining venues. Few establishments fuse the neighborhood's past and present incarnations more explicitly than STK, a restaurant that declares itself "not your daddy's steak house" on its Web site. Housed in a former garage, this novel concept with a "feminine edge," ICrave Design principal Siobhan Barry says, is her firm's third restaurant for the One Group, following One Little West 12th in New York and One Sunset in Los Angeles.

"People go to the meatpacking district to see and be seen, to feel like they're part of a bigger energy," Barry says. And she designed the two-story restaurant accordingly. Rather than break up the 6,300 square feet with solid walls, she kept the flow open, so the restaurant functions as one interconnected scene. "When someone walks in and is led to their table," Barry continues, "we call attention to that."

Materials and furnishings provide the delineation between the ground level's front dining area, central lounge and champagne bar, and main dining area in the rear. The front dining area and the lounge, for example, have concrete floor tile, whereas the champagne bar has walnut planks, and main dining is carpeted.

Barry adds that the restaurant's location informed her choice of "sexy and sultry" materials as well as the ground level's black-and-white palette. Existing structural columns are clad in shiny black glass mosaics. Black ceramic tile glitters on the face of the bar in the lounge, while black faux crocodile covers the low partition in front of main dining. A white leather look-alike upholsters all the downstairs seating, most notably the sculptural freestanding banquette that snakes its way through the lounge. Jutting out from a white-painted brick sidewall are five forbidding rows of white cast-plaster horns—Barry made the mold from the horn of an actual Texas steer.

Mirror adds a literal dimension to the restaurant's see-and-be-seen conceit. Between the front dining area and the lounge, mirror that's tinted violet clads a column housing a gas fireplace. In a sly twist, the wide one-way mirror tilted high above patrons' heads in the main dining area simultaneously conceals the staircase behind, giving anybody on the way up or down a bird's-eye view of the action.

Forgoing the ground level's nightclub ambience, the upstairs exudes understated luxury with just a touch of the risqué. A vanity mirror in the Hollywood style brings old-school glamour to the women's restroom. In the largest of the four private dining rooms, all named after burlesque stars, a semicircular banquette sits beneath a giant black lamp shade suspended from the ceiling. Inside the shade hangs a glass chandelier purchased at a lighting-supply store, then re-strung with black crystals by the designers.

The mirrored walls, flowing curtains, and densely patterned carpet and wall coverings in the four private rooms are all meant to convey the idea, explains Barry, of "plush without the fat." The reference couldn't be clearer. Just as steak, once dismissed as decadent, is now seen as part of a more health-conscious lifestyle, the STK look is about indulgence—served without aside order of guilt.

CHAIRS (FRONT DINING): KEILHAUER. FLOORING (FRONT DINING, LOUNGE): TOUCHSTONE TILES. CHAIR UPHOLSTERY (FRONT DINING), STOOL UPHOLSTERY (LOUNGE, CHAMPAGNE BAR), BANQUETTE UPHOLSTERY: ULTRAFABRICS. CUSTOM BANQUETTE (LOUNGE): CONNER POLLACK PRODUCTIONS. TABLES: THROUGH PIER 1 IMPORTS. CUSTOM HORNS: FORMGLAS. BAR FACE TILE: SETTECENTO. PARTITION UPHOLSTERY: VALLEY FORGE FABRICS. COLUMN TILE (MAIN DINING): BISAZZA. PENDANT FIXTURES (LOUNGE, MAIN DINING): BOCCI. STOOLS (LOUNGE, CHAMPAGNE BAR): CHERNER CHAIR COMPANY. FLOORING: ARMSTRONG. CHAIRS (MAIN DINING): PLANUM FURNITURE. CUSTOM BANQUETTE: DINE RITE SEATING PRODUCTS. TABLES: MEUBLES MELINEA. WALL COVERING: FLAVOR PAPER. CARPET: BENTLEY PRINCE STREET. CUSTOM PARTITIONS (CHAMPAGNE BAR): METAL DIMENSIONS; CARVART (GLASS). CHANDELIER (PRIVATE DINING): THROUGH LIGHT HOUSE. CUSTOM LAMP SHADE: JUST SHADES. CUSTOM BANQUETTE: ULTIMATE CHOICE UPHOLSTERY. CUSTOM TABLES: NUTERIORS. SINK FITTINGS (RESTROOM): KOHLER CO. SINK MATERIAL: COVERINGS ETC. WALL COVERING: WOLF-GORDON. CHAIRS (PRIVATE DINING): ANDRE ORIGINALS. LAMPS: KARTELL. CUSTOM CURTAINS: SMITH + NOBLE. CARPET: INTERFACEFLOR COMMERCIAL. MILLWORK: ASPEN CONSTRUCTION GROUP. LIGHTING SUPPLIER: COOPER ELECTRIC SUPPLY. STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: ANASTOS ENGINEERING ASSOCIATES. MEP: THOMAS J. FISKAA ENGINEERING. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: O&D ASSOCIATES.