Miyake's design draws accolades
Courtesy of Jamie Salomon
Chefs at Miyake's Fore Street location work behind a low-slung sushi bar, a design element inspired by tradition and part of the restaurant's new look that won designers with Kaplan Thomas Architects a merit award from the American Institute of Architects
A local architecture firm's work at one of Portland's landmark restaurants has given it a facelift worthy of its acclaimed Japanese cuisine and — its owners hope — a shot at a major culinary award.
In May, Kaplan Thompson Architects received an American Institute of Architects merit award for its work on the new Miyake restaurant at 468 Fore St.
"[Owner] Masa Miyake is very driven to excellence every step of the way and wanted the restaurant [design] to match the caliber of the food," says Jesse Thompson, project architect and principal at Kaplan Thompson. "It's pretty exciting as a designer to be asked to do that."
Founded in 2007 at an inconspicuous location on Spring Street — the restaurant's own website refers to it as a "hole in the wall" — chef Miyake managed to quickly corner the local high-end sushi market, garnering attention from publications like Bon Appétit, The New York Times and The Boston Globe despite having a mere 20 seats and no liquor license.
"The old restaurant had so much success almost in spite of that [location]," says Thompson. "It was just a dive."
But Miyake's fresh and simple cuisine outshone the location's shortcomings, earning the restaurant a reputation as a "diamond in the rough," in the words of current Miyake Manager Jessica Sueltenfuss.
"The old space was not an award-winning restaurant," says Sueltenfuss. "The food and service were great, but it was missing that key element of design."
Miyake and co-owner Will Garfield met with Thompson and shared their vision for a space that would elevate the restaurant's already strong reputation without outshining the food.
"Before, you went to a crummy little building in the West End and the food was amazing, but that was the previous story," says Thompson. "We were a little nervous because this was going to change the story. It was not going to be a magical surprise of great food in a little hole in the wall, it was going to be a restaurant almost as beautiful as the food."
Thompson, whose firm typically works on an average of one restaurant project per year, set out to execute Miyake's vision at a small former retail space on the edge of the city's Old Port, which opened in the spring of 2011.
"It works for Miyake because they don't do any frying, so they don't need grease traps or a hood system," says Thompson of the cozy space. "They very cleverly saw a space that wasn't available to other restaurants."
The proximity to the Old Port was another selling point for Miyake.
"We were very eager to get into the Old Port and be among tourist traffic. We have a lot of out-of-town guests come from Boston, New York and Philadelphia just to eat at the restaurant and we wanted them to be able to walk from their hotels," says Garfield.
In designing the new space, Thompson and the Miyake team were eager to embrace a theme that reflected Miyake's food.
"His food is not traditional sushi, it's creative sushi, so we didn't want the restaurant to be a complete dark wooden box, we wanted it to have a different character to it," says Thompson.
That character is evoked through the high-backed, "tuna-belly-red" booths lining the room, the backlit tapestries rippling along the walls and a low-slung bar top made of 100-year-old pickle barrel wood under a milled birch plywood ceiling.
There's no glass screen, wine bottles or stemware in sight, a minimalist touch that gives the restaurant a direct chef-to-customer experience.
"They very strongly wanted an open kitchen so that the person who cooks your meal is right in front of you," Thompson says. "The way the chefs hand you food over the counter is very traditional."
To that end, Garfield says the design aims to create its own, independent atmosphere.
"Aesthetics are very important to Masa and myself. We wanted people to step inside the store and feel like they had stepped out of Portland," says Garfield.
According to Thompson, Miyake upped the ante by throwing his own personal dream into the mix: The chef, who before coming to Portland spent a career working in high-end French and Italian style restaurants in New York City and Tokyo, had aspirations to capture a James Beard Award and wanted a design that would help it get there.
Providence Cicero, chair of the James Beard Foundation's Restaurant and Chef Awards Committee, says that while design, comfort and service play into the consideration for the category of outstanding restaurant, the chef awards "are really all about the food."
Those who capture the coveted outstanding restaurant award must have been in business for 10 years and, generally, "percolate up and win regional awards" before being considered for the nationwide prize, she says. The last Maine chefs to win a regional award from the James Beard Foundation were Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier of Ogunquit's Arrows in 2010; and Hugo's Rob Evans in Portland, who received the nod in 2009.
"It's not an absolute priority, but it's always in the back of our heads. If we could get Masa nominated for a James Beard award, that would be fantastic for us," says Garfield.
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