![Lee Restaurant by Futurestudio and Bent Gable Design](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2024/06/19154118/Azure-AZ-Awards-2024-Interiors-Commercial-Institutional-Lee-Restaurant-Hero.jpg)
The new home for Lee Restaurant, the primary business of Toronto celebrity chef Susur Lee, has all the luxe finishes you’d expect to see: walnut millwork, rich wall tapestries, vintage upholstery. But a few elements elevate the space above even its most auspicious peers. Collaborators Bent Gable Design and Futurestudio created railings that resemble abacuses. They commissioned artist Echo Electra to build a plaster host desk with perforations reminiscent of coral. In what is perhaps their most inspired visual motif, the designers arranged the dining room in a series of tiers that step down from the main entrance, like a waterfall or a terraced rice field.
![Close-up of plaster host desk](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2024/06/19154125/Azure-AZ-Awards-2024-Interiors-Commercial-Institutional-Lee-Restaurant-05.jpg)
Team: Ali McQuaid Mitchell (Futurestudio), Brenda Bent and Karen Gable (Bent Gable Design); with Susur Lee; Rob Cameron (Epilogue Developments); Jonathan Keating, Dylan Chrus and Jamie Rowland (Cooper Gordon); Andy Shahin (Canara); Emily Schorn (Futurestudio); Camal Pirbhai (Studio La Beauté); and Echo Electra
A few elements elevate Lee Restaurant above even its most auspicious peers.