Design Tips & Tricks
People rarely go to a restaurant simply because they need something to eat. Eating out is a change of scene, a social occasion and, at its best, an experience. Food remains at the heart of that experience, but the room in which it is served has considerably more influence than we sometimes realise.
For restaurant owners, this makes interior design a commercial decision as much as an aesthetic one. A well-designed restaurant can help establish its position in the market, support the price point, encourage repeat visits and give guests something they want to recommend. It cannot compensate for disappointing food or poor service, but when all three work together, the result can be extremely powerful.
Yuliya Forrest, founder and lead designer of Yuliya Forrest Interior Design, sees these three elements as closely connected.
"If I had to put them in order, I would say food comes first, service second and the interior third. But a successful restaurant really needs all three. You can create an extraordinary interior, but people will not keep returning if the food disappoints. Equally, excellent food served in an uncomfortable or completely forgettable environment can lose part of its potential. The strongest restaurants understand that the whole experience matters."
There is no universal formula for successful restaurant interior design. Before considering colours, furniture or decorative lighting, a designer needs to understand what kind of restaurant is being created and who is expected to eat there.
A Michelin-level fine dining restaurant may require intimacy, exceptional acoustics, carefully controlled lighting and greater distance between tables. A lively neighbourhood restaurant can be more informal, energetic and sociable. A restaurant built around experimental or molecular cuisine may benefit from an interior that feels unexpected and contemporary, while a restaurant serving a particular national cuisine can draw inspiration from its cultural identity without turning the space into an obvious theme.
"The interior should support what is happening on the plate. If the chef is creating something sophisticated and surprising, but the room feels generic, there is a disconnect. The same applies in the opposite direction. Not every restaurant needs marble, velvet and dramatic lighting. Sometimes simplicity is exactly what makes the concept convincing."
This relationship between food, service and surroundings also helps customers understand the restaurant's positioning. Before they have tasted anything, the interior has already communicated
One of the first commercial considerations is the entrance. Guests begin forming an opinion before they reach their table. The exterior, signage, entrance, reception and first view into the dining room establish expectations almost immediately.
The bar can be equally important. In restaurants where drinks form a significant part of the business, it should not be treated as leftover space. A well-positioned and visually distinctive bar can become a destination within the restaurant itself, encourage guests to arrive earlier or remain after dinner, and create another layer to the overall experience.
Lighting is another area where relatively small decisions can completely alter perception. Warm, layered lighting can make materials, food and faces look more attractive and create intimacy in the evening. Poorly positioned or excessively bright lighting can make even an expensive interior feel uncomfortable. Rather than prescribing one colour temperature for every restaurant, the lighting should respond to the concept, time of day, materials and type of service.
Table layout has an even more direct relationship with the business. Naturally, operators want to use the available floor area efficiently, but simply increasing the number of covers is not always the most profitable answer. Tables that feel cramped, difficult circulation and excessive noise can damage the experience guests are paying for. In a premium restaurant, greater space between tables may itself become part of the perceived value.
"Good commercial design is always a balance. The restaurant has to work financially, so every square metre matters, but guests should never feel that the room has been designed simply to fit the maximum possible number of tables. Comfort is part of what they are buying."
Repeat business is particularly valuable in hospitality, and this is where atmosphere becomes difficult to separate from the rest of the restaurant experience.
People remember how a place made them feel. They remember a beautiful table by the window, an intimate corner, the bar where they had a drink before dinner or an interior that felt completely different from anywhere else in the city. These memories become part of the reason to return.
Interior design also contributes to word of mouth. Restaurants have always depended on recommendations, but today guests also share their experiences visually. A distinctive restaurant interior naturally appears in photographs and social media, giving the business additional visibility. The important distinction is that the restaurant should be photogenic because it is genuinely well designed, not because a series of artificial "Instagram moments" has been inserted into an otherwise ordinary space.
A memorable feature can certainly help. Artwork, an unusual bar, a dramatic material, a beautiful ceiling or a particularly strong view can become associated with the restaurant. But it needs to belong to the concept.
Scotland offers an interesting environment for hospitality design. Edinburgh and Glasgow have established and highly competitive restaurant scenes, while Aberdeen, the Highlands and Scotland's destination locations present very different opportunities.
A city restaurant may need to distinguish itself among numerous competitors within a relatively small area. A restaurant in the Highlands can have another advantage entirely: landscape. In the right property, the view may be one of the most valuable elements of the interior, and the design should frame it rather than compete with it.
Aberdeen has its own character and audience, with an international business community alongside an established local market. For restaurant interior design in Aberdeen, understanding who the restaurant needs to attract is just as important as understanding the building itself.
Yuliya Forrest Interior Design's hospitality work includes the design of Mythri, an Indian restaurant where rich terracotta and deep blue were combined with contemporary detailing and distinctive peacock artwork. The intention was not to reproduce a conventional themed Indian restaurant, but to acknowledge the cuisine and cultural identity through a more individual contemporary interior.
"For me, one of the biggest mistakes in restaurant design is starting with the question, 'What style shall we do?' I would rather start with: Who is coming here? What are they coming for? What are they eating? How much time will they spend here? What should they feel when they walk in? The style comes afterwards."
Restaurant profitability will always depend on many factors: the quality of the food, service, pricing, location, management and operating costs among them. Interior design should not be presented as a shortcut to commercial success.
What it can do is make the rest of the proposition stronger.
It can help a premium restaurant feel worthy of its positioning. It can make guests more comfortable. It can create an identity people recognise. It can make the restaurant more memorable, support repeat visits and give customers another reason to recommend it.
For restaurant owners considering a new opening or refurbishment, that is perhaps the most useful way to think about design. The interior is not decoration added once the important business decisions have been made. It is one of those business decisions.
At Yuliya Forrest Interior Design, restaurant and hospitality interiors are designed around this relationship between experience and commercial reality, creating distinctive spaces in Aberdeen and across Scotland that work for the people operating them as well as the guests sitting at the table.
