Working with these mossy greens in was a refreshing bold break in carpet color. Talk to us about the overall design narrative.
It was a new building that opened in September 2019. Sadly, the restaurant closed during the pandemic but is optimistically looking forward to reopening.
We can’t always choose the spaces our clients move into. Rectangles are much easier to design. Animae is a curve inside a curve with very tall ceilings and columns running down the middle. We live for challenges, working out solutions that follow a curving path was difficult at first, but then we saw new opportunities for flow that we hadn’t seen before.
One may easily liken entering the glass door to Animae, just steps from San Diego bay, to stepping through a portal into a dreamy enchanted forest. Nestled into the ground floor of the luxury Pacific Gate Bosa tower, Animae’s design is a sexy Japanese mossy Art Deco mash-up that brilliantly compliments Brian Malarkey's distinctive coal-fired pan-Asian concept.
Lush jade-toned, velvet booths rise from the floor as huge tête-à-tête spheres of cedar trees that segue upward into art-deco architecture, layering the space with a fantastical, theater-like experience.
Lavish green velvet curtains float above a hand painted gilded cave that envelops a coral velvet banquette. Draped fringe-covered columns contribute to the feigned forest whimsy, while golden Fortuny chandeliers hang throughout. The 20-person bar at Animae also provides a feast for the senses. On center stage is a backlit mural of Berlin artists Sauer and Posavec's, Big Chuck, depicting a dystopian mech battle of a future yet to come. Surrounded by scalloped uplighting from which deco wings spread and take flight.
Luxurious and cozy, earthy and sophisticated, Animae is an enchanting space dripping in gold in which to dine and dream.
