Don’t be fooled by the traditional name: Izakaya at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is anything but ordinary. “What we didn’t want to be was cliché. We wanted to reinvent what an Asian restaurant should be,” says Brennan Brock, principal, New York-based Alvarez + Brock Design.

Diners enter the 200-seat restaurant via a “floating” glass bridge. “You pass through the screen, through an old Japanese garden, over this bridge; then it feels like it’s a different space in there,” says principal Rafael Alvarez. Once inside, the 9,000-square-foot space is segmented into five free flowing areas: the dining room, bar, sushi bar, robotayaki counter, and lounge.

Says Brock: “They wanted something that wasn’t obvious, so we created this very architectural space. It’s not about four walls, a ceiling, and a floor.” The designers took elements common in Asian cultures-geishas, sake glasses, shoji screens, pagodas-and interpreted them three dimensionally throughout. Above the bar, beams of wood create a large, sculptural geisha head with chopsticks in her hair. “It’s not a direct description of that image; we interpreted it to create that life and energy within the space,” says Brock. “It’s definitely a two or three martini type of place.”

“You see something in the beginning, and after a few drinks you understand it better,” seconds Alvarez, noting one of the larger than life geisha photos the duo commissioned specifically for this project. “After your second martini you finally realize it’s not tea, she’s pouring a martini.”