Located on a historic cobblestone city block in New York’s Soho, Japanese restaurant Niko is the newest collaboration between local designer Rafael de Cárdenas and restaurateur Cobi Levy. “Interestingly, it was a fairly successful Japanese restaurant [before]. The bones were perfect and the space retains the same charm it had,” explains de Cárdenas, founder of local firm Architecture at Large, who also designed Charles restaurant in Manhattan for Levy. “I wanted to incorporate the beauty of the room; the economy of means, the subtle palette, the sense of intimacy are, in a way, a throwback to the Shinto design ethos.”

He infused the 80-seat restaurant with natural elements like travertine, walnut, blonde oak, ivory, brass, and onyx, while “the colors were purposely left muted so that the contrast prevalent in our work came from layering materials,” de Cárdenas says. “This also created a great neutral backdrop for artist Jim Drain’s outstanding poppy primitive mobiles.”

Drain also created a stained oak screen, which divides the space into two areas: a main front dining room with custom built banquettes and street views through double-height windows, and a more intimate area in the back, complete with onyx and brass opposing sushi and cocktail bars.

Yet the main attraction is a handwoven web of ropes that de Cárdenas zigzagged and stretched from one side of the space to the other. “It softens the hardness of the brick and creates an interesting conduit for light diffusion through reflected symmetries,” he says. Overall, he adds, the restaurant is a “picturesque landscape of interesting material use.”