Today’s post is inspired by my new part time job – selling wine!! Whoo!! Imagine getting paid to taste wine, drink wine, being given wine each month to take home and then rave about how great it is to someone else (and thereby sell it)?! Awesome or what? As you can tell I am very excited about this. My part time job will help in funding this budding little blog and also help with the reviews. I might eventually know what I’m talking about when I rant about a new, up-and-coming wine bar out there. Well… anything can happen if you give it enough time….

Alright, so enough about me, more about Red Pif Restaurant & Wine Bar. Located in Prague, Czechoslovakia, this little beauty was designed by Aulík Fišer Architekti and completed in 2010.

Read this quote from the architect:

“When the client approached us with an offer to design this interior I asked myself a question whether I could at all accept such a task. Should we linger upon it though I do not understand the atmosphere of cool restaurants at all?”

There are a couple of things I have to say here; one, lucky them being in a position to knock back work; and two, I am most definitely glad that they didn’t knock back this job as they has successfully proven that they can create a “cool restaurant”. I really love these simple yet very effective window shutters that double as a type of logo for the facade.

For Jakub Fišer and Petra Skalická, the architects on this project, the main concern was how to create a cool restaurant without being fake. To them it appeared that there were plenty of restaurants that had no integrity, no character or patina developed from years of experience and knowledge. All they saw were new bits of furniture plonked again and again in very similar restaurant environments, there was no story or link to where the produce was coming from.

“…it would be like artificial flavouring of wine – and would you drink artificially flavoured wines?” Aulík Fišer Architekti

“…we agreed not to artificially flavour even the interior. It would contravene the character of natural wines they should sell in the wine shop.” Aulík Fišer Architekti

So this was the starting point. Paring back the design so that the wine and food could be enjoyed to its fullest, purest sense. They removed the existing paint to the walls, exposing the existing history of the building, the marks and scars on its walls developed over time. Materials used in wine production were used, such as oak for flooring and the bar top. Steel has been pinned back to the walls to create wine racks that disappear once the wine is stored.

A painting called ´A Vineyard´ by Czech artist, Martina Chloupa, complements the paired back and textured walls. Subtly linking Red Pif to its produce and origins.

All lighting is either concealed or indirect except for dimmed exposed light-bulbs which give a warm rustic feel to the space.

The spinning bottles at the windows are derived from bottles of wine stored in boxes for transport etc. They simultaneously create an interesting feature of the restaurant and a logo for the facade. The spinning attribute allows the owners to connect with the surrounding city or to close it out for private functions or tastings, transporting clientele to an urban wine cellar.

Love!

GB x

[Found via dezeen]