UXUS was approached by The Selzim Restaurant Group to create a unique dining concept for their restaurant, Ella Dining Room & Bar, in California’s State Capital, Sacramento. UXUS created a complete restaurant concept including the interior restaurant layout and design as well as the branding and residence style. The 4 million dollar project has a capacity for 250 diners and covers an area of 7600 sq feet. The restaurant is named after executive Chef’s Randell Selland’s (of the Kitchen Restaurant and Selland’s Market-Café) granddaughter Ella. Ella Dining Room & Bar serves ‘Modern American Bistro’ cuisine. The owners wanted the restaurant to become ‘Sacramento’s living room’, an urban oasis where lawmakers and other diners can go and unwind after a long day’s work.
The design objective for Ella’s was to build or shape a brand that embodies the principles of ‘Rustic Luxury‘, and that celebrates an elegant, relaxed contemporary lifestyle. ‘Rustic luxury’ is a synonym for purity, the essential beauty and goodness contained in simple things. It is about the pleasure and sensuality of real materials, and about the inherent comfort of a natural, effortless style. It is not a simplistic reduction. It is the magical crystallization of two apparent opposites, simplicity and complexity. Rustic Luxury, as defined by Ella’s, offers its guests an experience that combines the simple and natural pleasures of dining at a dear friend’s home, at their table d’hôte or host’s table. The ‘œHost’s Table’ is a French tradition of eating in the kitchen while the chef is preparing dinner. It is a very welcoming and intimate experience, usually reserved for honored guests and close friends. The owners of Ella wanted to build or shape that level of intimacy at their restaurant.
UXUS cleverly opened the kitchen to the dining area with 2 large communal tables forming the table d’hôte area. Diners can experience the thrill of watching the chefs at work, and taste the results of their culinary efforts. All of these elements come together at Ella Dining Room & Bar to form an intimate and convivial dining experience, the embodiment of ‘œRustic Luxury’ right at the heart of California’s State Capital.
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