The first Nooch Noodle Bar in the U.S. is also the first New York restaurant designed by Karim Rashid. Nooch, a Singapore-based chain, asked Rashid to serve up his own interpretation of the traditional Asian noodle shop.
The result, Rashid says, is “a 'techno-organic' restaurant that speaks about now, that communicates and reflects the hypertrophy of the digital age and 2004.”
The “techno” part of Rashid's design is immediately apparent at Nooch's entrance. The restaurant's façade consists of a floor-to-ceiling glass wall imprinted with a fading silk-screen pattern and framed in green neon lighting. Recessed in the sidewalk in front of the space are LED lights of scrolling text that spell out menu choices and waiting times for patrons.
Highly visible from the street is a 9-foot-tall, glass-mounted supergraphic billboard just inside the restaurant's entrance. Printed on that panel is the face of a Singapore model whose visage “expresses confidence, strength, beauty and the Asian heritage of the restaurant,” Rashid notes.
The “organic” side of the restaurant is expressed in such features as the brightly colored soft and round chairs and tables that Rashid had installed throughout the space. “The restaurant embraces the global village and internationalism, and is designed to create a cosmic sense of well-being where technology humanizes, energizes, inspires and relaxes us,” he explains.
Other eye-catching elements within the Nooch space include: a pink-glass rear wall; an electric blue deejay booth where music for the space originates; digitally printed laminate flooring with a black background and white lines running through it (symbolizing both noodles and wiring); a central, custom-chrome ribbon bar; and a side wall bearing a backlit painting of pink, blue and green tubes by Megan Lang, Rashid's wife. “The painting expresses noodles, chaos, entropy and dystrophy, and serves as a fluid, dynamic backdrop for the space,” he notes.
Client: Nooch Noodle Bar, New York
Janice Ong, owner
Design: Karim Rashid Inc., New York
Karim Rashid, founder
Dennis Askins, interiors director
Architect: O'Neil Langan Architects PC, New York
Construction Management: Vanguard Construction and Development Co. Inc., New York
Audio: Sound Investment Audio, Chicago
Lighting: Levy Lighting Inc., New York
Photography: Brian Park, New York