From The Ivy to Hix, Martin Brudnizki is the designer responsible for making London’s top restaurants sexy

The Scandi designer tells Katie Law how to create a power table and why colour is the elixir of life
Martin Brudnizki in his self-designed residence in the Royal Academy’s Academician’s Room
Rebecca Reid
Katie Law @jkatielaw9 September 2015

Think of a top London restaurant or club and there’s a good chance Martin Brudnizki designed its interior. From Annabel’s, Le Caprice, Dean Street Townhouse, Hix and The Ivy (including its about-to-open Kensington and Marylebone offshoots) to Scott’s, J Sheekey Oyster Bar, St Pancras Grand, Smith&Wollensky and Wild Honey: you name it, he did it.

Yet today the 48-year-old Swedish-born designer du jour is feeling apprehensive. His “sexy” and “seductive” revamp of the Academicians’ Room at the Royal Academy, designed by Norman Shaw in 1883 and reopening as a private members’ club next week (£240 to join, and then £300 a year), will be scrutinised by the great and good of the art establishment.

It’s one of the few spots in London where David Hockney can still enjoy a smoke on the balcony. “It was such an honour to be asked to do it because it’s one of the oldest art establishments on the planet; a small space, but super-important,” says Brudnizki, blinking nervously.

Such humility from the man who decides whether thousands of Londoners’ bums sit on brown leather banquettes or plush pink velvet sofas when they eat out is unexpected. But Brudnizki insists that he just creates the packaging and can’t afford to have hissy fits. “I don’t have an ego; I have to leave it at the door,” he says, “except of course when I’m in my own home, when it’s a nightmare to even decide on a cushion.” Making an interior space work in London’s fast-moving and fickle foodie world, he says, must begin and end with the client.

The most important in London is unquestionably restaurant tycoon Richard Caring of Caprice Holdings. “Richard is great to work with because he understands all his brands, is incredibly patient and knows what he wants, although he might not necessarily know how to get there,” he says.

Their latest and most ambitious venture yet is Sexy Fish, an enormous brasserie due to open in Berkeley Square next month. “You will literally go ‘What the f***?’ when you walk in. It’s so high-end and extravagant, above and beyond super-elegant. It’s extreme,” he says of the interior.

Brudnizki has also just finished his transformation of what was the Knickerbocker Glory-friendly Fountain bar at Fortnum & Mason into 45 Jermyn Street. While the PR describes it as “old-school glamour meets contemporary London” Brudnizki was concerned about stopping customers using it as a thoroughfare to the main store. “We dealt with it in a really clever way, so if they walk in there now with their shopping bags, they’ll say ‘Ah’ and just turn around.”

Brudnizki's designs at the bar at the Rosewood London Hotel

His talent as a designer goes far beyond the practicalities. To interpret his clients’ ideas he always starts with making what he calls an emotive mood-board. “Here, I’ll show you one,” he says, whipping out his iPhone. This was for the Academicians’ Room. “It’s not about ‘Oh, you’re going to have that floor or those curtains’, it’s about a feeling. So we take the space and superimpose a chandelier, some comfortable corner sexy seating — not the actual seat, just the idea — then a beautiful young man who’s chilling; a bar, some bottles, seductive lighting, a few interesting pieces of furniture, a gorgeous girl lounging … because that’s what the story is about.” Let’s hope the academicians agree.

He is also a big fan of the mono-restaurant trend, acknowledging that the London food scene is moving faster than ever and restaurants need to keep evolving or risk closure. “In the past two years we’ve seen steakhouses come and go,” although Burger & Lobster remains a favourite because “it’s a clever idea done in an interesting, accessible format”.

The Ivy — which reopened in June — is a good case in point. “There was nothing wrong with the food, the service, the stained-glass windows, the timber panelling or the art. What didn’t work was the old-fashioned layout. You came straight into that awkward little bar and into the main dining room where the far right-hand side was called Siberia because no one wanted to sit there. Now all the tables are as good as each other,” he says.

Grand designs: the recently reopened Ivy

What, no top tables for the celebs? “No, I don’t like the kind of hierarchy where you say these tables are for the famous people, then all you others can sit over there. I understand the importance of power tables which I build into the scheme, because some of these restaurants are naturally elitist. But I prefer democratic layouts. It’s probably my Swedish background.”

Brudnizki, whose tastes bear no resemblance to your average pared-back Scandi mood-board, grew up in Stockholm. His father was a Polish aristocrat who, having seen his family fortunes destroyed by the war, escaped from Warsaw on a Baltic cruise and arrived in Stockholm with nothing more than the clothes he was wearing and a few family jewels. He made a new life for himself there as a civil engineer and married a beautiful German — Brudnizki’s mother — who worked as a visual merchandiser.

“She had exceptional taste and I grew up in an incredibly elegant environment. I thought everyone lived like that. I remember going home with classmates who would have this weird wallpaper on their kitchen walls and I’d have to leave because I was getting a headache,” says Brudnizki, “ I was an emotional, sensitive child. There were certain things I couldn’t deal with and the wallpaper was one.”

Brudnizki studied economics at university and then worked as a fashion model. “It was a tricky period in my life. I realised economics wasn’t for me and the modelling was about validating the way I looked more than anything else.” A chance encounter with a friend studying interior design led Brudnizki to enrol on a similar course in London in 1990.

Design hotspot J Sheekey

In the mid-Nineties Brudnizki worked for David Collins, the luxe interior designer who died unexpectedly in July 2013 and into whose shoes he has arguably stepped. “David was a larger-than-life character. Working with him was intense and a lot of fun but there came a point when it was time to move on; it felt like coming off drugs.”

From the moment he opened his own design studio in 2000 Brudnizki was a success. “It’s because I’m always in a hurry to push things through and get them done. That’s the German side of me.” In 2012 he set up a practice in New York and between the two studios employs 70 staff.

He lives in Fulham in a two-bedroom flat — dark green sea grass and lots of art on the walls — with his partner, Jonathan Brook. They met at the Wallpaper* Awards party two years ago and for the past year, Brook, 27, has also worked as Brudnizki’s PR manager. There is always champagne in the fridge at home — “Oh yes, at least one bottle because you never know who’s going to pop round”— and a single- estate tonic concentrate that Brudnizki imports from South Carolina because “normal tonic kills the flavour of the alcohol”.

A guide to London's design hotspots

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He also hates black and will only wear it for funerals or black-tie events. “Colour is the elixir of life. Black is too harsh. That’s why people love our colourful interiors. It’s like walking into a candy store; they come in and think ‘We’re going to have a great time here’,” he says. And the chances are he’s right.

Follow Katie on Twitter: @JKatieLaw

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