White-painted walls, wooden trusses, leather chairs, indoor potted trees, concrete tile floors and marble bars, all against a backdrop of Biscayne Bay.
Related Group unveiled designs on Tuesday for its planned Michael Schwartz-helmed restaurant at Paraiso Bay in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood.
Gray Davis and Will Meyer
Meyer Davis Studio, the New York City-based design boutique tapped to create the two-story restaurant and beach club, displayed renderings during a brunch presentation at Paraiso Bay’s sales gallery, catered by Schwartz.
“We want it to be really accessible,” Meyer Davis co-founder and interior designer Will Meyer said of the restaurant. “A place you could go all day long — a neighborhood place.”
When completed by late next year, the Paraiso Bay Restaurant and Beach Club will have a “lofty,” industrial look with high ceilings, an open kitchen and bar. The second floor will feature a private club, with an outdoor patio and pool, said Gray Davis, co-founder and interior designer of Meyer Davis.
Meyer and Davis said they started with the idea of a historic building. “What we thought would be cool… would be to imagine if there was this one villa and everything was around it,” Davis said.
Rendering of the bar on the second floor
The goal was to use tactile, natural and “honest” materials, with portholes to give it a maritime feel. “I think it will have a really nice vibe to it,” Davis added.
Schwartz said he hopes the waterfront restaurant will help activate the neighborhood. “Just for there to be a great destination restaurant on the water is a great accomplishment,” he said.
The restaurant is one of several Related projects Meyer Davis has been involved in, along with Auberge Beach Residences in Fort Lauderdale and W Fort Lauderdale Hotel & Residences.
When completed, Paraiso Bay will have four towers on five bayfront acres, with a total 1400 residences, designed by such noted architects as Piero Lissoni and Karim Rashid. Enea Studios will design the landscaping plan. Amenities include a bayfront park and private marina, as well as the restaurant and beach club.
Carlos Rosso, president of Related’s condominium development division, said Paraiso and the restaurant will help transform the area, where scattered “condoms, syringes and decapitated chickens,” are found today.
“A big part of this is our vision. We like to think of ourselves as people who change neighborhoods and create neighborhoods,” Rosso said. “We would like to see the new Edgewater rise.”