Mix the warm hues and straight lines of “Mad Men” with the poppy curviness of La Dolce Vita and you might very well end up with Sessanta, a new Italian restaurant in New York’s recently renovated SIXTY SoHo hotel. The goal, says restaurateur John McDonald of Mercer Street Hospitality, was to “build a midcentury Italian space that feels as if it has been here for a long time, and is neither country rustic or slick Milan.”
SIXTY Hotels founder and owner Jason Pomeranc knew just who to turn to: London and New York-based Martin Brudnizki Design Studio (MBDS), whose work creates, he says, “an incredible balance between beauty and technical proficiency.”
To complement the “polished yet simple” coastal Italian menu, the restaurant had to display a “warm and organic feeling,” according to founder Martin Brudnizki. “We used lots of natural materials—linens, marble, mohair, and timber.” An earthy palette of hunter green leather banquettes and wood flooring dominates the main dining room.
The challenge, according to the designer, was that the floor plan only allowed in light from the front of the space. “To combat this, we managed to create a conservatory-dining area at the back—complete with skylight, foliage, and a cement tile floor—that offers an intimate yet airy feel,” he says. The team also decided to place the restaurant’s teak and marble bar in the middle of the room in order to activate the space. Bright accents, such as chairs upholstered in sapphire leather, orange stools, and a red and white tile floor, punctuate these areas.
“The midcentury aesthetic should be quite subtle,” Brudnizki explains, “as this was a time when craft and modernity were blurring in a rather playful way. You can see examples of this in the polished wood walls in the bar areas, the [sconces] that discreetly mirror the work of Gino Sarfatti, or even the chairs, which have a touch of Gio Ponti about them.”
MBDS mimicked the vibe in the recently opened rooftop bar A60, complete with wire chairs and bright turquoise lounge seating.
“The end result,” Brudnizki sums up, “is an abstraction of modernist design principles—each element evokes the period but takes on a contemporary twist.”
