Breaking the Ordinary: 7 Trends for Restaurant Interior Design

Dining establishments that want to secure a competitive position in the fierce hospitality industry need to go beyond the usual practices and their focus on the quality of their offerings. To stand out, attention should also be directed toward their interior design.

A beautiful restaurant interior is more important than ever considering the discriminating taste of today's diners in the Middle East. It's not enough that they're eating expertly prepared gastronomic treats. They want a fuller experience through visually pleasing views and other sensory components, which can be achieved through thoughtful design.

Currently, there are a lot of trends for restaurant interiors. But, if you are thinking of making your interior design decisions really count for the success of your dining establishment, rounded up below are seven trends to consider.

1. Creative Seating

If you inspect the interior design and decor of popular restaurants, you will notice that the seats are no longer mere integrations for the dining comfort of customers; these are visual components as well.

In themed restaurants, the seats are a significant factor in strengthening their look and feel. Therefore, these are often custom-made to ensure a full experience of the restaurant theme. Some are made to look like treehouses or seats inside a train. Meanwhile, some are designed to maximize space or create a continuity of lines and materials in the interior design.

2. Decorative Floors

The ground people step on in a restaurant provides fantastic opportunities for improved interior visuals as well. There are countless approaches to making floors a focal element of the restaurant design.

For example, a popular international Japanese restaurant has installed a glass-covered shallow stream of water on the floor where koi fish swim. Diners get a huge kick out of watching small, colorful fish swimming under their feet while eating sushi.

In cafes and bars in Dubai, on the other hand, many of them make use of decorative coatings to make floors resemble precious stones, a mirror, or some other luxurious material. The concrete floor coating instantly elevates the look of the interior. But, that's not all — it also improves the durability of the floors and makes them a breeze to clean.

3. Artistic Walls

As with decorative floors, hip restaurants also employ various creative strategies to make their walls as pleasing to the eyes as possible. From using chalkboard paint to making wall design easily customizable to funky interior decorative paints to elegant commercial wallpaper, mosaic tiles, framed paintings, and quirky installations — most of today's fancy restaurants use these.

Artistic walls make for great conversation pieces and add richness to the dining out experience. These also emphasize the theme of the establishment and bring more interest to the floor layout of the place.

4. Interior Garden

As more attention is directed toward green practices and sustainability, restaurants make sure not to fall behind on this movement. Interior design is one aspect of a restaurant's identity, where agreement and support for the movement can be demonstrated.

One popular way that a lot of restaurants do this is by including an indoor garden to their interior design. Interior gardens are often vertical to fit into the limited space of the place. Restaurants have two options for interior gardens. These can merely be placed for beauty, or these can provide edible ingredients for the kitchen.

For sustainability, restaurants opt for the kitchen helper — an edible garden. They grow kitchen ingredients — everything from different kinds of herbs to vegetables and fruits that grow on vines in these gardens.

 

But, even if the indoor garden is worked into the interior design to supply ingredients for the kitchen, they boost the overall look and style of the business as well. They bring a profusion of green and other lovely colors — always a welcome sight in mostly hard concrete structures in urban locations such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

5. Geometric Installations

Geometric installations often come in the form of standalone art inside restaurants. These are popular integrations to the interior design of most business establishments. These add dimension to space, and like wall art, they make for fascinating conversation pieces or sources of amusement. They can also reinforce the design theme of the restaurant.

When it comes to materials, geometric installations can use pretty much anything — from light metal wires to massive boulders, and even recycled materials.

These can include additional functionalities and features. Some come with flowing water to improve the temperature inside the restaurant, while some double as planters for small succulents, or places to add decorative lighting.

6. Subdued Lighting

For dining establishments, subdued lighting has grown to be the preferred lighting intensity. According to light designers and engineers, soft, warm lighting is perfect for restaurants because it creates a cozy ambiance. Additionally, subdued lighting has the ability to enrich the natural hues of the dishes served, while the shadows create the much-needed depth in food presentation.

Recessed lights, warm downlights using filament bulbs, string lights undulating across the ceiling — these are just some of the subdued lighting sources that feature in restaurants. Candles and fireplaces are commonly used as well, especially for restaurants in cold places like the northern parts of the region. The warm glow that emits heat is the perfect combination for a wholesome dining setup.

It’s worth noting, too, that subdued lighting is preferred for restaurant interior design because no matter what colors and patterns of decorative paint or wallpaper you use, the interior always looks more luxurious when subdued lighting is used.

7. Attractive Ceilings

Making ceilings attractive is also a top trend in the restaurant scene. Thoughtful ceiling design enhances room dimensions and can make restaurants a more enjoyable place to be.

For instance, using raw wood beams across the ceiling has been scientifically proven to make restaurants and other dining establishments seem more wholesome. The untreated appearance of natural wood creates warm feelings in people.

On the other hand, coffered ceilings instantly give spaces an air of elegance and sophistication as these are common features of extravagant structures. As for ceilings adorned with unique decorative lights or splashed with bright hues of paint, these easily appeal to young crowds that are just as much into social interactions as they are into good food.

There you have it, seven interior design trends that are serving the restaurant industry well. So, if you are thinking of overhauling the interior design and decor of your restaurant, the aforementioned trends should help you come up with ideas to set it apart from your competitors.

AUTHOR BIO

Ralph El Eid is the Business Development Manager at COLORTEK - Wall & Floor Fashion. EQUIPAINT is the franchise owner of COLORTEK in Dubai (U.A.E.) and Doha (Qatar); an international paints manufacturer specializing in the widest range of decorative paints and seamless concrete & resin flooring, with a unique showroom concept, and thus an ideal destination for homeowners, consultants, architects, interior designers and paint applicators.