Located below grade, Lielle is a romantic and moody cellar where award-winning chef Marcus Jernmark serves a 4-course menu and California wines. The space, previously occupied by the Michelin-starred French restaurant, Bicyclette, was transformed by California-based architecture and design studio, Lovers Unite. The firm used the windowless site to its advantage, turning the 2,300-square-foot locale into a bespoke cave that balances its subterranean site and elegant clientele.
Nearly every architectural element and furnishing in the project is custom, beginning with the front door. A custom pivot-hinge opening, framed with soft curtains and finished with hardware from Sweden, introduces the bespoke approach to Lielle. It opens onto a vestibule of brick clay pavers that lead downstairs.
The natural materiality continues to the main dining room and bar. Here a barrel-vaulted ceiling is lined with cork and intersected with silver-leafed ceiling planes, setting a textured interior and wine-appropriate material palette. Plastered walls and brick-lined floors using pavers from California and Oregon-based ORCA round out the earthen atmosphere.
Along the walls, antique mirrors capped in brass and vintage French and Scandinavian glass scones sit above cherry wood banquettes, upholstered with a deep red wine–toned leather. The banquettes wrap the perimeter of the space, as they look out onto more banquettes that snake down the middle of the dining room.
The custom furniture was made in collaboration with RAH Studio, including the cherry wood ovoid tables that anchor each banquette. In between the back-to-back booths, custom zinc-clad service stations and bespoke lamps developed with Matt Alford Studio create rhythmic flow.
Lighting evokes candle-lit caves through Lovers Unite’s careful selection of luminaires and reflective surfaces. Mirror-tipped bulbs placed at the apex of each barrel vault, for instance, soften the illumination. In other places, Gubi lanterns and including Skultuna table lamps light a romantic atmosphere.
Things get red-hued in the bathrooms which are completely clad in travertine tiles. The marbling on the tiles evokes geological strata, continuing the cellar-like theme in a decadent fashion. It’s contrasted with more cleaner, contemporary fixtures like stainless steel detailing and glass sconces, another layer to the design’s considered context.