The project is located at the ground level of the iconic four-story Forum Shops at Ceasar’s, a rare commercial space with windows onto the iconic Las Vegas strip.  The large and irregular space required significant infrastructural upgrades in its transformation from retail to restaurant use.

Our design challenge was to distribute the primary program elements in a harmonious arrangement that exploited the highly irregular footprint of the lease space. We employed a landscape of four macro-elements to provide both scale to the vastness and definition to the primary programmatic elements.

The first element, defining the entry, was the massive sloping and curved wall that greets visitors from the mall.  The wall provided a minimal and sculptural portal into the restaurant, differentiating it from the chaotic and faux-ornate public space beyond.

The second element, defining the dining room and bar, was the large, faceted ceiling.  The ceiling was conceived as a low-floating angular cloud, whose shifting patterns and low elevation provide both visual excitement and an unexpected sense of intimacy.  The cloud hovers like a field above the sea of green leather seating, oak flooring, and marble bar, almost touching the creamy plastered perimeter walls and the dark volume of the long linear open kitchen.

The third element was the organically-shaped peripheral spaces of the restrooms and private dining. These spaces flank the dining room and provide a soft organic reprise from the angular atmosphere of the dining room.