UMMO
Chicago
UMMO, from superstar Chefs Carlos Gaytán and José Sosa, offers a new take on luxe Italian dining in Chicago’s tony River North neighborhood. Designed by Studio
K, UMMO is a two-story space with a sophisticated downstairs dining room and a loft bar upstairs. The open concept dining room seats 100 with an additional 12 at the bar. The sprawling upstairs lounge seats another 200 guests. It offers clean sightlines and warm colors in shades of brown, tan and sage grounded by a custom crafted herringbone floor from Italy.
UMMO’s design was inspired by a fictional modern family. The husband is an architect and the wife an attorney – ideal clientele for the classy dining room.
Meanwhile, the fictional pair’s twentysomething adult children would be more likely to enjoy the trendy yet elegant social lounge space upstairs. To add to the visual design elements, music was specially curated so it blends seamlessly from smooth jazz to more upbeat tunes as you scale the stairs to the loft.
Cocody
Houston
French fine-dining restaurant Cocody dazzles with a glitzy space that seats approximately 170 across 7,000 square feet, including an outdoor courtyard. The design draws its inspiration from the town in Ivory Coast where its owners, Edwin and Edith Bosso, hail from. But its influences don’t stop there. “The Bossos wanted to create a place that you wouldn’t find anywhere in the U.S.,” says Winn Wittman, AIA, of Winn Wittman Architecture. “We looked at dozens of restaurants from New York to London to Paris to Dubai.”
Wittman worked with Nina Magon Studio to create the vision for the interiors. The result is a mix of sophisticated elegance and whimsy adorned in pinks and gold and polished metals. Every surface is curved, including the golden horseshoe-shaped bar that was inspired by the Plaza Athénée in Paris, one of Edith’s favorite places.
A sparkling canopy of crystal lights provides a soft glow in the main dining room.
