9 Restaurants That Are Taking This Millennial Pink Thing Very Seriously
It’s time to talk about Millennial Pink. We know you can’t scroll an inch these days without seeing a blush wall, a nude red carpet gown, or an impossibly pink nature shot (guilty as charged). Love it or hate it, the color palette—which starts somewhere around Himalayan pink salt and stops just short of beet-cured-lox—is coming to dinner too. Is it the rise in female-run kitchens? Blurring gender lines? Post-industrial design fatigue? Or just that all-powerful social-media ripple effect? “Leaders adopted the color, and the mass followed,” says Anna Polonsky, co-founder of The MP Shift, the design studio responsible for the airy, light-filled interiors of De Maria, Verde, and Otway. Polonsky and her business partner, Amy Morris, say they actually like the shade and see it as an androgynous, neutral tone. “The more you see pink being used for design, the less you associate it with a gender,” says Morris. Still, they’re careful to keep pink as an accent in their designs. Says Polonsky, “It’s already hit a fever pitch.” From the austere to the overt, here are nine pink-ish restaurants across the world.
1/9Pietro Nolita, NYC
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The décor in Pietro Quaglia’s namesake Italian restaurant is intensely pink. Even the napkins sport the playful tagline, “Pink as Fuck.” “When you get here, everything is pink, and you eat pasta and listen to reggae and it’s all great,” Quaglia says. He designed the space as a homage to the brightly colored restaurants dotting the seasides of Santa Margherita and Portofino near his home in Milan. “Before the second World War, officials would wear red uniforms,” Quaglia says, but their sons would wear pink, the derivative. “Pink has always been considered a strong color,” he explains. And on the streets of New York, too, Pietro Nolita is impossible to miss.
Photo by Alex Lau2/9abcV, NYC
At the newest collaboration between ABC Carpet and Home’s Paulette Cole and Jean-Georges Vongerichten—each table is set with baby-pink-hued mugs, dishes, and tumblers glazed with volcanic ash from Iceland. Then there are the banquettes made with striped, hand-woven rugs and blankets in pink, orange, and red; and the neon-pink-flecked glass wall separating the dining room from the kitchen. Amy Ilias, the executive vice president of art and design at ABC, says the tones were meant to evoke nature: “the sky at daybreak or sunset, sand, stone, minerals, and earth.” Also, you know, Barbie’s Dreamhouse.
Photo by Nicole Franzen3/9De Maria, NYC
This MP Shift-designed NoLita cafe is the work of Camille Becerra (the chef responsible for those Café Henrie dragon bowls), and Grace Lee, music producer and founder of Liaison Femme. Sun-faded flecks of our favorite shade can be found throughout the restaurant: besante beige for the leather banquette seats, pink tableware from Coming Soon New York and SinD Studio in Tel Aviv, light-pink mugs from Workaday Handmade, and a sandy pink plaster archway and bar tile. Lee says the color choice had nothing to do with gender or trends. “There's a peace to rose,” she explains.
Courtesy of Cha Cha Matcha4/9Cha Cha Matcha, NYC
Since opening last spring, this flamingo-pink storefront space has been serving signature drinks with Japanese ingredients like yuzu and red bean, along with La Colombe coffee and Chikalicious pastries. We wanted to “make a place that serves a super high quality product, but in a super chilled, mellow, fun, and almost silly atmosphere,” says co-owner Matthew Morton. Inside, the tropical hue makes its way onto everything from coffee cups to soft-serve machines. “The design ticks all the trendy boxes, from palm leaves to pink,” says Morris.
5/9June's All Day, Austin, TX
“I remember fifteen years ago getting a lot of heat for wearing a pink t-shirt,” says Will Fox, lead designer at Austin-based McGuire Moorman Hospitality, which owns this bright, retro-cute cafe. “That wouldn’t happen as much today.” Fox chose June’s blush-pink plaster for its quirkiness and intimate glow. “It encourages people to relax and feel comfortable,” he says. The laid-back sophistication continues on the mixtape menu: wines culled from all over the world, inventive cocktails, and French-influenced diner fare.
Courtesy of Sketch6/9The Gallery at Sketch, London
This 18th-century tea house and cocktail lounge is one of the earliest adopters of the pink aesthetic; it’s also one of the most celebrated. Think classic, almost bourgeois dusty-pink pastels—Mayfair’s own little slice of Beverly Hills. The self-deprecating, outré David Shrigley art on the wall stops things from getting too aristocratic . Instead, the bulbous chairs and velvet-upholstered banquettes feel more like a scene from The Grand Budapest Hotel. “When you arrive in Mayfair, all the streets and buildings sparkle,” says Morris. “This space brings some fun to the pristine neighborhood.”
Courtesy of Brooke Shanesy Studios7/9Please, Cincinnati, OH
“I went to college for graphic design, which included color study classes,” says Ryan Santos, chef-owner of the popular Cincinnati kitchen. “Color has always been an important part of creating a dish for me.” Inside Please you’ll find locally made light-pink ceramic bowls, as well as pink wine books and checkbooks, and, our favorite, a pink-flecked bathroom tile hand-painted by Santos and his girlfriend, Jessie. “[Two years ago], it was a color that wasn’t largely represented in restaurants and dining. The theme was neutrals and earth tones,” Santos explains. The restaurant sports a handful of colored plates, but Santos admits the pink ones get the most attention. Polonsky calls this soft blush “the new white.”
Courtesy of Treves & Hyde8/9Treves & Hyde at The Leman Locke Hotel, London
Designers Grzywinski+Pons somehow managed to blend a wide variety of materials (timber, blackened steel, natural stone, brass, concrete, and ceramic) and an exuberant color palette at this neighborhood oasis. The main shade in the space is closer to burnt sienna. It’s only as you’re sitting at the bar, sipping your rye cocktail, that you notice the pure-pink tile grout. Morris calls it “a gentle reminder of [the bar’s] irreverence.”
Courtesy of Buckstudio9/9Nanan, Wraclaw, Poland
This Marie Antoinette inspired patisserie’s velvet walls, bespoke lamps, and arched doorways make it feel like a dreamy Willy Wonka factory for grown-ups. “We wanted a place where time stops and you forget about the whole world,” says Dominika Buck, head designer and architect at BUCKSTUDIO, who designed the space. Buck admits that, when she chose the color in 2015, her clients were skeptical. “It used to be a color associated more with little girls than with restaurant design,” she says. “But those soft and powdery shades make a great but not so obvious match with typically masculine colors like navy, steel gray, and moss green.”
