From the editor – Fall 2011 | Utah Style & Design

From the editor – Fall 2011
by Brad Mee

A Side of Style – Fall 2011

Yes, that’s a hand-blown Venetian chandelier hanging over a table handcrafted of recycled timber. It’s a piece of eye candy aimed at making a tasty meal’s price more palatable for style-stimulated diners like me. And it works. Serve me dynamic design, and I’ll stay through dessert.

Admittedly, I’m a self-confessed dining-out decor junkie. No, I won’t return for bad food just to eat amongst haute interior design, but when the fare holds its own, the decor is a deal maker. Teamed with great service, it shapes the overall experience.

We’ve all engaged in over-a-drink discussions about our best-ever meals out. Listen carefully and you’ll hear people touting decor as much as cuisine, me included. I recall a fresco-clad palazzo dining room-turned-restaurant in Florence, where the dining space was draped in fan-blown silk sheers providing intermittent glimpses of the centuries-old masterpieces. The furnishings were ultra contemporary and the food classic Tuscan—I didn’t want to leave. In Santorini, I dined in a cliffside, candlelit volcanic cave at a linen-topped table so white that it matched the stucco abodes stepping down to the caldera. It was magical. What did I have to eat? Honestly, I don’t remember. Closer to home, I reminisce about dining in a log-framed canyon hideaway and an urban Italian ristorante warmed with yellow walls and family photos.

The more drinks poured, the more I recall design worth drooling over.

Today, savvy restauranteurs labor over decor as much as their menus. Among them is the team at Talisker on Main, a Park City dining spot featured in our Fall 2011 issue’s new department “Feast for the Eyes” (pages 48–50). I’d like reservations for two, please.

As for you, prepare to have your appetite for haute restaurant design whetted from our fall issue forward.