May 26-June 1, 2005

cityspace

Rooms to Let

HANG TIME: "Most lounges are just tiny nightclubs," says Joe Beckham of Walnut Room. "I wanted someplace where people could actually lounge." Photo By: Mike Mergen

… you lounge, relax, drink, groove, or God forbid, actually have a conversation.

by A.D. Amorosi

It could be stuck atop a bakery, squeezed between buildings or snuck in when you weren't paying attention. Spring's newest, most intimate rooms seem to have sprung from nowhere, as in, "Hey, where'd that room come from?" or, "Did you bring that room?" or, "I told you not to bring that room in here, again."

Whooda thunk to put a quirky lounge atop a homey bakery? Joe Beckham and Giancarlo DiPasquale — who brought quiet kitsch to Walnut Room's 1,300 square feet — did. "Most lounges are just tiny nightclubs," says Beckham. "I wanted someplace where people could actually lounge." Beckham's "social club" keeps the colorful space's lighting not-so-low and the music not-so-loud so people can see and hear one another. There's also a 40-foot-long, custom-designed pop art red leather couch with a low back so that people can put their arms around each other. "I wanted the couch to be a less secluded item, like a booth, and more communal," says Beckham. (There are black leather booths in the back if you need to feel huddled.)

Along with the blue room's warm bamboo floors and black lacquer benches, the narrow space (20 feet wide) features bold oranges, limes and reds, bright art pieces like Mike Skiles' backlit Mylar photo transfers and the mirrors from the address's old Rib-It days. Aside from the large stainless-steel bar and a matching ledge — both of which feature plywood facing and Brazilian cherry flooring the owners found a week before opening — the room's focal point is the back wall, made of frosted acrylic with a broken green glass center by Philly's Geronimo designers. The funny thing is that the inset glass was originally commissioned by Stephen Starr for Morimoto, but it broke — creating a shattered pattern Geronimo found fascinating. "A lot of this was done on the cheap, surprisingly," Beckham says. Funky, chic and not cheap are Walnut's waitstaff, who dress in 70s outfits and English maid uniforms, serve drinks from tea kettles and hand out paint-by-number games to the clientele.

Where the Black Door is concerned, owners Charles Brodzinsci, Bill Schmidt (of Monte Carlo Living Room) and chef Michael Berninger (Buddakan) have dumped most of the old mirrors from this address's shiny previous incarnations (Pyrenees, Halo) and kept the smokiness intact for its Port Noir-inspired craft-beer mini-castle. The Black Door has a far more intimate feel than you'd think an 88-seat restaubar would. The basement boite features a low-ceilinged bar lit by Tiffany lamps and a brick archway that points you toward the stone grotto below. "No one ever treated this space like a hangout," says Brodzinsci of the overly precious spot he redesigned with lime-colored accents atop thickly lacquered, burled mahogany tables and banisters. "They never even bothered the Black Door."

Ah. The Door. A rumored part of the Underground Railroad, the Door — situated in a downstairs wall that resembles a castle tower — was hidden behind plaster. Unearthed during the establishment's rehabbing, it was given a coat of paint and a place of honor next to a brick fireplace and a wrought-iron manger gate. Here, you can ensconce yourself in a super-private basement space — "The Corleone Table" — and nosh on divinely brothy paella.

If you're looking for a tiny room and a nosh late at night, ex-Denim exec chef Scott McLeod — designer pizza's punk overlord, with tall, spiky hair, tattooed arms and all — has your Fresca right here. "I want to brand this place as upscale," says McLeod of his high-end mix of boutique wines, microbrews, chopped salads and tony-appointed pizzas like the Smoked Salmon (with caviar and crûme fraiche), the Duck (fontina cheese, truffle essence) and the Spanish (idiazabal cheese, chorizo). Despite the old-school, leaning-ledge-and-mirror setup, Fresca isn't your normal pepperoni joint. Rather, it's a late-night lounge (open until 3 a.m.) with sleek, chrome-rimmed cafeteria tables surrounded by black leather booths under a mix of faux and genuine hanging work lights that illuminate Fresca's exposed brick walls. "I wanted that police interrogation glare," says McLeod.

TC Lei and Associates gets credit for the architecture, whose notable features include the bi-level ceiling's exposed heating vents, black art deco curves, exposed metal beams, corrugated dimetab steel floors ("the shit that truck toolboxes are made of") and a custom-made stainless-steel-and-glass pizza counter. But McLeod came up with the mix of brushed silver, thick black metal, broken bricks and blood-red coloring. "I'm an old hardcore guy," says the former fanzine publisher (The Proud Society) who brought in peeps from Relapse Records to design the death-metal graphics for his menus and logo. It's just possible that Rittenhousers may not be hip to hardcore. "If I was playing Hellblock 6 I might not get the same clientele," Macleod says. Still, on opening night, neighborhood denizens politely sucked up buffalo mozzarella and marinated eggplant pizza. "It could be a swanky strip club," says McLeod. "In fact, if the food doesn't work out, that's what I'll turn it into."