Luchetti Krelle has designed Rafi, a 300-seat restaurant and bar located in North Sydney. The vibrant space is a maximalist mash-up of materials and pigment pairings, enticing spontaneous aperitivo hours with its open outdoor area and Aperol-toned umbrellas. It’s a continuation of a collaboration behind the designers and local hospitality group Applejack, with Luchetti and Krelle also designing their popular Sydney haunts The Butler, Bopp & Tone and SoCal.

Inside, an open kitchen forms the nucleic hub with a bar seated directly opposite. In between them, a series of intimate seating arrangements in the main dining room lead to a private room flanked by a moveable cork wall. Outside, framed by windows and doors of galvanised steel is The Arbor, a semi-al fresco glasshouse that wraps around the outdoor tree-lined terrace with crisp white arabesque arches.

Punchy primary shades mingle with power pastels amongst neutral rendered walls in this layered design approach that seeks to ignite child-like awe and wonder. What results are conjoined spaces retaining their own identity, yet several subliminal themes curiously connect them.

A jigsaw of graphic floor patterns ranging from chequered granite and terracotta tile arrangements to timber parquetry and marble mosaic tessellations culminate in a vibrant silk carpet in the private dining room by the indigenous artist, Colleen Ngwarraye Morton.

Building on this, geometric shapes feature prominently: from the layered cork, inspired by Josef Albers’ square paintings, lining the Private Dining Room’s sliding doors, to the stained oak bar face with its stepped square grid pattern. Other notable materiality includes galvanised steel surfaces with a settled patina and a ceiling comprising woven seagrass mats in the private dining room.

Even table tops take on various shapes, ranging from squares, rectangles and ovals to octagons plus circles with scalloped edges. Abstract canvases book-end the main dining expanse, the colours of their angular shapes conveying the complimentary clashes of Rafi’s internal palette.

A jigsaw of graphic floor patterns ranging from chequered granite and terracotta tile arrangements to timber parquetry and marble mosaic tessellations culminate in a vibrant silk carpet in the private dining room by the indigenous artist, Colleen Ngwarraye Morton. Building on this, geometric shapes feature prominently: from the layered cork, inspired by Josef Albers’ square paintings, lining the Private Dining Room’s sliding doors, to the stained oak bar face with its stepped square grid pattern. Other notable materiality includes galvanised steel surfaces with a settled patina and a ceiling comprising woven seagrass mats in the private dining room. Even table tops take on various shapes, ranging from squares, rectangles and ovals to octagons plus circles with scalloped edges. Abstract canvases book-end the main dining expanse, the colours of their angular shapes conveying the complimentary clashes of Rafi’s internal palette.

[Images courtesy of Luchetti Krelle. Photography by Steven Woodburn.]