2023 Eat Drink Design Awards: Best Restaurant Design – joint winner

Jury comment

Designing for two separate yet interconnected venues is a challenge that is beautifully resolved at Beau and Dough. Beau displays the typical moodiness and drama of a night-time venue through textured black granite surfaces, a monolithic bar and precise lighting that flatters the food and the space. Dough, a working bakery, utilizes industrial materials, such as reflective stainless steel and white granite, that befit its functional identity. The two distinct dining experiences and spaces are united by a throughline of long caramel leather banquettes and solid oak blonde tables that run parallel to floor-to-ceiling windows and that profile the heritage brickwork of a neighbouring building (another shared element of the two spaces). Extremely restrained in its palette and choice of materials, the design is focused on seamlessly executed details, from the undulating steel mesh ceiling to the floating banquettes that allow uninterrupted window views. This is a venue with a true sense of permanence and timeless style – and one that perhaps signposts a more sustainable design future.

Design statement

Beau Bar and Dough Bakery are nestled within an inner-city laneway in Surry Hills and anchored by plinth-like joinery items (monolithic bars and kitchen benches, respectively). The venues, however, contrast in mood. Harmony is achieved through meticulous details, thoughtful compositions of joinery and furniture, and a sophisticated material palette. Beau and Dough is a functional yet refined space. The project required negotiating the complexities of connecting two distinct retail tenancies that shared a laneway into one bakery and wine bar with a single vision. Calm and tactile, the stone plinths contribute to this unification. They also add symmetry and theatre to establish working and making as the visual centrepieces of both spaces. Dough, in keeping with the industrial quality of a bakery, features stainless steel bulkheads and daylight-bathed white granite benches. In contrast, Beau has a dramatic, dark, luxurious interior that combines polished concrete floors, raw steel joinery and textured black granite surfaces illuminated by soft pools of light. Storage is cleverly concealed behind steel panelling. Along the windows, brick laneway walls animate continuous caramel leather banquettes and solid oak tables. A gently swaying steel-mesh ceiling installation conceals lighting fixtures.

Beau and Dough is built on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Project credits

Design practice Smart Design Studio Project team William Smart, Christina Markham, Arash Engineer, Aaron Wooster.

See the full gallery of winning and commended projects on the Eat Drink Design Awards website.

The Eat Drink Design Awards are organized by Architecture Media (publisher of ArchitectureAU). The 2023 awards’ supporting partners are Roca and Latitude.

The Eat Drink Design Awards are endorsed by the Australian Institute of Architects and the Design Institute of Australia.