Four years after a fire tore through the Stokehouse restaurant in the St Kilda section of Melbourne, the eatery has made its return. Sydney-based design studio Tilt collaborated on the rebirth of the restaurant with Robert Simeoni Architects and owners the Van Haandel Group.
The two-level eatery pays homage to its past life with a blackened timber façade that is also equipped with horizontally bi-folding stainless steel screens that combat excessive sun exposure. Raw elements like leather, concrete, and brick comprise the materiality to mirror the qualities of the manmade sand dunes nearby that conceal the ground floor from the street level, thus casting the upper level in an illusion of levitation. The new precinct also includes the casual bar and grill Pontoon, as well as the fish and chip kiosk Paper Fish.
