An award to make the design the main course

The next time you go to a restaurant for dinner, Marco Rebora wants you to not only pay attention to what is on your plate, but also to everything that surrounds it. “We probably know the name of the chef in the kitchen; maybe it’s Gordon Ramsay or [Ferran] Adrià,” says Rebora. “I want people to also know the name of the interior designer.”

This Belgian has set out to bring back the status of restaurant designers as benchmarks, years after an establishment could not be considered fashionable if it was not accompanied by the signature of Philippe Stark or Lázaro Rosa- Violán. With this in mind, in 2008 he founded the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards, with renowned architects such as Zaha Hadid or Norman Foster regularly appearing on its shortlist. In its 15 years of existence, it has gone from only including British designers to 90% of entries coming from outside the UK. This summer, the company released its first short documentary, Dining on Design, with Dani García’s Smoked Room restaurant and its designers, Astet Studio, as protagonists. In 2024, for the first time, the awards will be presented outside of London, in Barcelona.

Rebora is polite and courteous as he sips tea and snacks on some shortbread biscuits at The Painter’s Room, the bar of the mythical Claridge’s hotel in London. He chose the location of this interview to highlight a space that does things well. It was designed by Irishman Barry O’Sullivan, and it is an explosion of pastel pink marble, golden chandeliers with shell inlays and an Art Deco-style stained glass window. “The space is amazing. Look at that precise detail,” he says, pointing to the perfectly placed cushions on the leather stool.

In 2001, Rebora founded the restaurant Neon in Brixton, south London, but it closed after six years. Then he moved to Wales, where he created the concept for his next company, the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards, a combination of his two passions: food and design. “I had my eureka moment when Tony Chambers, the editor of Wallpaper magazine, replied to my email agreeing to be an awards judge,” he recalls.

The awards have grown to become the highest design accolade for the hospitality industry. For Rebora, it is not just about honoring elite establishments: “Whether it is a Wahaca [a British Mexican food chain] or a McDonald’s, I think design is about taking care of every last detail.”

Rebora’s vision is democratic. He envisions the space as common ground that everyone can enjoy besides just eating. “Larry Traxler, global designer for the Hilton chain, mentioned that a restaurant or a bar is the most important space in a hotel. It’s open to the public, even if you can’t afford to pay for one of its rooms.”

They say that a book should not be judged by its cover. But what about a restaurant? “Absolutely,” Rebora says, smiling. “I’m bored of talking about food all the time. Let’s talk about the design of the space.”

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