Restaurant lighting design is what brings your interior design to life. You have an image of your perfect dining room. That vision includes tables, pressed napkins, pristine tablecloths, and the ideal place settings, all coming together to make the ultimate dining experience and capture the essence of your venue. How is that mood defined? By the light you shine on it.
What is the best lighting layout or design for a restaurant?
The best lighting design depends on many factors to consider with every new project:
- To what degree will natural light be used?
- What lighting is needed for each time of day?
- Where are the key focal points for your restaurant?
- What is the primary purpose of each type of lighting?
- How can you integrate lighting with architecture for the most significant visual impact?
To gain a proper perspective of how restaurant lighting is best executed, you need to consider some of the best restaurant environments and the results their lighting design achieves. To do this, let’s take a quick trip around the world, so you can gain some tips from the finest examples.
Our pilgrimage to Canada’s ambient lighting
(Prime Seafood Palace on Instagram: “Welcome to our house.”)
First, consider your ambient lighting design when creating the best restaurant lighting design. Ambient lighting sets your atmosphere and gives your customers an impression of your venue. Ambient lighting provides the primary level of lighting for your dining space, allowing other lights to highlight key features of your restaurant.
Take Toronto’s Prime Seafood Palace. You can observe the contemporary style and subtle balance between the pools of natural light spilling through the privacy-creating wood strips and window blinds, the effortless use of decorative pendants, indirect cove lighting, and recessed lighting. The ambient lighting design provides flexibility and variation in the day-to-night feel of the space.
The dangling cylinder lamps focus light over the tables to bring intimacy in an open space, while the recessed lighting and indirect cove lighting produces a dramatic layered effect when combined with the striking maple-beamed cathedral-style ceiling. Together, these create a gentle, neutral tone, making the most out of the native Canadian maple-wood interior. This intelligent ambient lighting design makes this a more inviting place to enjoy your meal.
When task lighting is simplistic, it is elegant
Traveling to “The Big Apple” and energy of New York, NY, we find abc kitchen. Known for its fresh ingredients, the atmosphere is inviting and its simplicity perfectly puts the focus on the presented dishes. Here we discover an excellent example of task lighting.
The overall mood is intimate, with your gaze drawn to the beautiful colors in the food highlighted through the white washed interior design. Each table is task-lit. This can be achieved with LED cylinders suspended from the vaulted ceiling, track and accent fixtures, or downlights to cast the perfect spotlight, bringing visual focus to the dishes.
Additionally, your kitchen team needs to see their workstations clearly, while diners’ attention should be drawn to the plating and presentation. Using under-cabinet or shelf LED lighting combined with focal spot lighting ensures your staff can work safely while various points become the attention grabbers for customers.
Tip: Learn more about commercial grade lighting for restaurants.
Zoning in on accent lighting design
Your perfect restaurant design will excite all the senses to elevate your diner’s perception of your food and overall sense of value in your establishment. Providing elements within the restaurant that capture the eye and trigger conversation is the perfect way to ensure your establishment’s atmosphere draws people back and provides that perfect “Instagram” opportunity.
Jubako-inspired “Kan Japanese” in Beijing uses various accent lighting techniques to encourage people to focus on the carefully curated items of Japanese culture throughout the restaurant. Cubbies are spot-lit with well placed, small-aperture downlights featuring Japanese ceramics, while a blossoming cherry tree seems to glow in ethereal light as it floats above a sea of black marble, with the use of trackheads that are barely visible. These are just a couple of examples of the exquisite design of Kan. A calming Zen-like stone garden lit with an interesting contrast of color temperatures completes the layered “Jubako” effect.
Keep your restaurant busy with the best restaurant lighting design
Whether interior restaurant lighting or exterior safety, it’s vital to integrate your lighting options from the inception of your restaurant dream. Restaurant lighting is not just about the ability to see in the dark. It’s a way to express drama, passion, warmth, and style to create a powerful environment . The best restaurant lighting design will always highlight your most important details, show your food and drinks in the best light, and induce the perfect atmosphere for your customers.
If you need help bringing your dream to fruition, reach out to us online. We’d love to start a conversation about selecting the right lighting system for your location.