A ROMAN DINER

Tasked with a design refresh for the new home of Lele’s Roman, Studio Tre looked intensely at the design language already established by Roman and Williams at the Ace Brooklyn – the raw concrete meeting earthen wood and supple leather textures – an adoption of contradictions and the voltage created by the union of opposing forces.

In a new structure straddling an existing subway station, a certain off-kilter configuration of structural columns was embraced and local symmetries uncovered. A new cocktail bar, enlarged from the original bakery counter front, extends further into the space, inviting community and visitors alike within.

This new bar riffs on the material palette already established in the space – deep greens meeting amber and sanguine tones. New elevated bar banquette seating energizes the first bar room of the space; with new glass and steel screens create a sense of intimacy and architecturally divide the space.

References to deep cuts of late modernism in New York and Italy meet the irreverence and self-assuredness of a more casual Roman vernacular at Lele’s Roman. (Photography by Grant Legan)