Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/63192
Thomas kept the sandblasted dry- oak walls when he reinvented the space for Sinatra but replaced the traditional chandelier with large sisal ropes. F or Wynn Design and Development executive vice presi- dent Roger Thomas, envisioning a new restaurant is both a challenge and relief. The challenge comes with repeatedly raising the bar for forward-thinking hospitality design while creating a distinct personality for each room related to both chef and menu. The relief comes from designing within the finite square footage of the space. "It's easier to capsulize and focus the design of the restaurant when you're doing fairly large public spaces," says Thomas. "You're talking about a large vocabulary that you're extending over quite a bit of real estate. Often, there is a portal into which you can enter a new world." Of course he has an enthusiastic client and collaborator in Steve Wynn, who played a significant role in how Thomas' four favorite restau- rant designs turned out. "He loves designing restaurants," says Thomas. "He loves everything about them. He wants to know where every service position is, where the food comes from, where it is going to land. We go over everything with Steve, and he asks most of those questions." GOLDEN FLOWER (WYNN MACAU) "We were asked to do a couple of things. One was that it was to be an elegant, dramatic restaurant without being traditional. Two, we were asked to honor Chinese tea at the entry. The whole entry room is inspired by the Peacock Dining Room Thomas Jeckyll designed for Frederick R. Leyland. The room had been completely designed by Jeckyll to show off his patron's blue and white Chinese porcelain. I went to Beijing and bought five pieces of antique blue and white china, and then we put the motifs off of that china—off-center, to bring them into the 21st century—on very classic Chinese service items. It was a 200-year-old design taken from a 200-year- old antique put on a new piece that served the room very well. They were the right shape, the right sizes, the way Chinese preferred dining for their food shapes of choice. We created a new custom classic for the room." Eyes's love for Paris, Thomas imported the bar's beaded Perhaps taking a nod from Ol' Blue ship chandelier and crystal-and-beaded obelisks from the City of Light. SINATRA (ENCORE LAS VEGAS) "It was first thought that Sinatra should be a rather fancy tablecloth res- taurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the Tower Suites. What I kept from the original design are the natural sandblasted dry-oak walls, which have no finish on them. They're just sandblasted and left to dry. I had some more traditional chandeliers in the room, which we took out and replaced with those large, rather muscular, olive-green-dyed sisal ropes, which pour from the ceiling with big green shades and green acrylic in them. Then I added what I call 'drunkards rope' up inside the cove, just looped it in a completely asymmetric way. In Paris I found the magnificent crystal-and- beaded obelisks and beaded ship chandelier that are at the bar." WYNN 69 PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUSSELL MACMASTERS (GOLDEN FLOWER); BARBARA KRAFT (SINATRA)