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A Different Angle of Adam Tihany

Restaurant designer Adam Tihany does not see the world the way you and I do, but he understands what makes us comfortable

By Gordon Mott

Adam Tihany has twice designed the home of one of New York's true dining icons, first as Le Cirque and now as Restaurant Daniel.

Adam Tihany is standing beneath the awning of Restaurant Daniel on New York City's East 65th Street, explaining the difficulty of tackling a redesign of one of New York's four-star dining institutions, a place that devotees had loved just the way it was. The first hurdle had been the interior's landmark status, which meant it couldn't be altered in any major way. The second was that his client, the owner and chef Daniel Boulud, a man with a reputation as an absolute perfectionist, had been absent—in China—for the entire renovation. And last, Boulud had required the work be done during a five-week shutdown in August in a city notorious for its glacial pace of construction.

As Tihany walks through the door, he begins pointing out the subtle earth-tone fabrics on the walls, the lighting fixtures, the carpet, and then, as he enters the main dining area, he shows off the luminescent panels that obscure the old balustrades and turn the space between each of the large columns in the room into something more modern, or as he says, fresher. The room now has a cohesive feel, a seamless blending of Old World elegance with a modernist sophistication.

He picks up a plate and runs his fingers over the white-on-white circles, a dynamic half circle within a circle. He points to the carpet, where a subtle brown and tan swirl mimics the same pattern on the plate. And, yes, the same swirl of circles is on the welcome mat outside the main revolving brass door at the entrance. Every detail had been considered, all with an eye toward creating that cohesive "design." And Tihany did it while meeting his three requirements: to impress a new look on the space without disturbing its landmark status, to satisfy Boulud's penchant for perfection and to wrap up in five weeks a project that wouldn't have raised New Yorkers' eyebrows if it had taken years.

"Before, it was decorated, not designed," says Tihany, standing casually in the still empty dining room. "Now it is fresher. But it has a design. And yet we still have let the room be what it was meant to be."

In 2008, Tihany Design celebrated its 30th anniversary. Fittingly, one of the firm's early projects had been to design the original Le Cirque, which Boulud had run as chef and which today is contained within Restaurant Daniel, the original restaurant's dining room now serving as a private function space in this establishment. Since then, Tihany has spanned the globe with his projects as he has designed hotels and restaurants from Prague to Mexico City, from New York to Hong Kong, and from California to Dubai. During the course of interviews for this story, he traveled to Hong Kong and then to Cape Town, South Africa, having just returned from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico before the first meeting. By the breadth of his travels, you might think that he takes every job that comes his way. But he dismisses that conjecture. "It can be a long process of a year or more, so I have to have a personal relationship with the people I work with," Tihany says, suddenly lacing his words with a hint of intensity. "I have to ask pointed and detailed questions. I need to know the DNA of the person before I can design for him." If he doesn't feel comfortable with a person, or his cooking, he won't even think about taking on his project.

Tihany's life as a designer almost didn't happen. He was born in Targu Mures, Transylvania, a region of Romania, on New Year's Day in 1948, to survivors of the Holocaust. They immigrated to Israel in 1950 and Adam grew up in Jerusalem. "We were really pioneers there. My father built roads while he waited to retake the bar exam. My mother sold sandwiches," Tihany says. He joined the Israeli Army in 1966 for a three-year stint that included service during the 1967 Six-Day War. "By that point, I had to get away. With the mood of the country, it was just a burden. My parents weren't wealthy enough to send me to the United States or the United Kingdom, so I researched where I could go and get an education that was inexpensive.

"I discovered that Italy was giving scholarships to Israeli students with a five-year temporary visa," Tihany says. "The two choices were the faculty in Bologna in veterinary medicine, or architecture in Milan. I didn't want to be a vet. That's all I knew about architecture at that point." While attending the School of Architecture and Planning at the Politecnico di Milano, he got an apprenticeship at an architectural firm, where he learned everything from how to sweep the floor to acquiring knowledge more pertinent to his field: making blueprints and drafting designs. "I guess I was good enough at it that they ended up making me a junior partner. I went to school when I could. It was very unstructured, and they didn't care. My education was really my on-the-job training. By the time I finished, I was a professional."

Most big architecture jobs at the time, according to Tihany, were in urban planning projects, so smaller firms scrambled to make ends meet by doing all kinds of design work: interiors, furniture and other nontraditional aspects of architecture. As a result, Tihany acquired skills in a range of areas. "That was the real beginning of what became known as Italian design. All these big-name architects . . . had the opportunity to absorb in the broad sense of what design is," Tihany says in his rapid patter and mysteriously unplaceable accented voice. "Italy wasn't used to someone who could do more than one thing. But if you can really design, then you can resolve more than one problem."

In the mid-1970s, America was lighting up to the charms of Italian design and firms began recruiting promising young designers from Italy. Tihany says the firm for which he worked was approached and asked if any of its designers would like to work in America. He said yes, and in 1976, Tihany moved to New York to become the design director at Unigram before he would eventually found his own firm.

The idea, Tihany explains, was to bring an Italian designer to America and really capture the style of the moment. He opened the office, and then through a series of fortunate events worked on a project for Adnan Khashoggi, a Middle Eastern arms dealer, in the Olympic Tower in New York City. The condominium, at 7,200 square feet spread over two floors and including a swimming pool, was at the time the largest residence in the city.

In 1978, Tihany opened Tihany Design with one assistant. "I was selling myself as an Italian designer. Give me your problem, and I'll solve it for you. But people seemed to be looking for a fashion designer or something," Tihany says. "I starved for three years. I did apartments, stores and nightclubs. But then in 1980, I met a gentleman who asked if I could design a restaurant for him." Tihany says, without a hint of immodesty, that the project was really the start of a new category in the design business: restaurants. La Coupole, based on the famous brasserie in Paris, opened on 32nd and Park Avenue South in Manhattan in 1981, to rave reviews and lines around the block. "I could do architecture, lighting, furniture, all in one place," Tihany says. "After La Coupole's success, I bought a sign that said Adam Tihany, Restaurant Designer. It was really the birthplace of a profession."

From the comet-like start of La Coupole, Tihany's restaurant projects over the years read like a who's who of the restaurant world. He designed the original Le Cirque with Sirio Maccioni, and many of his other restaurants, including Le Cirque 2000. His stamp is on the top of the four-star restaurant world in New York today: Per Se, Jean Georges and Daniel. In Las Vegas, he's done Aureole, Spago, Circo and another Le Cirque.

Tihany's work is not limited to restaurant design. He has developed lines of dinnerware and glassware (notably a stylish cocktail glass) as well. Nor is he limited to designing on land. Tihany created dining areas for the cruise ship Solstice, which was recently launched by the Celebrity line.

Tihany also designed his own restaurant, Remi, in New York City in 1987. The elegant establishment, which he sold in 2007, was the epitome of modern Italian restaurant design with sleek lines and almost muted colors. But more importantly, Remi provided Tihany insights into the day-to-day operation of a restaurant. He sent his design firm employees to work there so they could understand some of the special design problems that a restaurant presents. "I don't have to waste time with my clients talking about the size of a serving station, or all those hundreds of other little things that make a restaurant work," Tihany says. "And my clients don't just see me as a designer, but as a colleague. Things don't have to be explained to us, so we can spend time talking about the nuances in the design process."

Thomas Keller, the chef who owns French Laundry and Bouchon in Napa Valley and Per Se in New York, says that working with Tihany was easy because the designer immediately understood his standards. He feels that Bouchon, where he wanted to create the quintessential French bistro, was a perfect example of the designer's versatility. "When I told people I was using Tihany, they questioned it because of the flamboyancy of Le Cirque [2000]," Keller says. "He has such a great knowledge of design, and he listens to what the restaurateur wants." He says even when they disagreed, he would gladly listen to Tihany's reasons, and if he had a compelling reason for doing something, they would talk it through.

Charlie Palmer is currently working with Tihany on a new Aureole in New York. He mentions the effort to re-create Aureole in Las Vegas, which is renowned for a huge wine tower that looms over the big dining room at the Mandalay Bay, and the desire to have a flashy wine element in the new Aureole in New York. Tihany, the restaurateur reveals, has come up with what he calls a wine mezzanine, of which Palmer says simply: "Wait until you see it." Palmer is impressed. "[Tihany] thinks about it all in different ways. The lighting. The seating. The overall feel. But that's what we talk about . . . . I never have any reservations about bringing up things I don't like. But we work it out. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of cigars and a lot of booze to get where we are going. But it will always be something special."

Boulud and Tihany go back more than 20 years to when the Frenchman was the chef at Le Cirque and was first making his mark in the culinary world in America. Boulud says he had realized that he needed to modernize his flagship restaurant, Daniel, as the 10th anniversary at the 65th Street location approached. He had asked several other designers for proposals, but he wasn't getting the results he was looking for. "Adam came to dinner and I told him what I was trying to do but I didn't know where to start," Boulud says. That was the beginning that led to what is there today. "His first attempt I criticized," Boulud says, "but little by little he began to understand. He was really on target from the beginning, but at each step it got more and more harmoninous." Boulud mentions the Manolo Valdez paintings that hang on the walls as another example of how Tihany incorporated something that the chef wanted in the restaurant, and a sign of his savvy ability to incorporate his clients' desires. "I couldn't tell him my reaction that first week because I wanted to get some feedback. But I'm so proud of what we've done."

If there's a common thread among the chefs that Tihany works with, it is their appreciation of his knowledge of not only design but food and restaurants. And there's no doubt, for anyone who knows the man, that food is a passion second only to design. "I'm not saying that I would pass up going to see a Caravaggio to find a piece of great Serrano ham," Tihany says with a laugh and a trademark twinkle in his eye. "But maybe. And I certainly would prefer to go out of my way to find a great restaurant than to go off to see archeological sites." It's that passion for food that also shapes his desire to work with certain chefs and not others.

His love of cigars might be touted right up there with his love of food. He began smoking cigars when he was 21 years old, and hasn't stopped. He started out with Toscanis in Italy during his early years as a student. "I was hanging out with existential types who were always plotting to blow things up. I was into it . . . it's part of who I am. I love things that you taste. Food. Wine. Cigars. I see it all as one thing, a layer of engagement with the good things in life. I don't have a lot of hobbies, so I spend a lot of time thinking about these things." He says he used to arrange his travel schedule so he would go through airports where he knew he could buy good Cuban cigars. He recalls being in Amsterdam on a project, where he wouldn't buy a box of cigars, but just five a day so he could go back to the cigar shop the next day, or being in Hong Kong at the Mandarin Oriental, and only buying one cigar at a time so he could go back to hang out at the Cigar Divan there.

"I remember being in London in the early 1980s and I went to Harrods and bought a San Luis Rey Cabinet Selection, a regular corona. It blew me away, it was so good," Tihany says, puffing on a Fuente Fuente OpusX, another of his favorite cigars. "I liked it so much, I kept walking around the block until I finished it so I could go back in and buy another one."

He was also present at one of the early moments of the creation of Cigar Aficionado. Marvin R. Shanken, the magazine's editor and publisher, had asked Tihany to join Michel Roux, the developer of the Absolut vodka brand, and himself for a lunch. "He showed us the prototype of Cigar Aficionado," Tihany recalls. "We both looked at it, looked at him, and said, 'Are you mad?'" But he says Shanken said something along the lines of, "Well, I've got a hunch it will work."

Tihany attended Cigar Aficionado's Dinner of the Century in Paris in 1995 with a couple of friends, and says, "We were all so impressed with the entire evening." After that night, he and his friends decided to get together every year to celebrate their friendship and their love of cigars, and The Cigar Clan was born with 15 members. They wrote a charter with several stipulations: each person has to bring a gift for everyone else; each member contributes to a fund; and each year, one person hosts the event, setting up a three- to five-day extravaganza for the group, using that budget. They have met in Scotland, Venice, Marrakesh, Havana, Monte Carlo and Las Vegas. A Buenos Aires event was canceled in the wake of 9/11. While it's been a few years since they've gathered, Tihany's nostalgia for the get-together remains very strong. His favorite cigars today run the gamut from Opus X Belicosos to Montecristo Edmundos. Tihany is especially partial to Cuban Davidoffs, and he likes Dominican Davidoffs for a daytime smoke. He does outrageousy generous things for friends like giving them a box of 1995 Partagas Lusitanias as a birthday present. He still loves San Luis Rey Cabinet Selections as well as Ramon Allones Specially Selected. Tihany has slowed his cigar consumption in recent years, but you can still find him on weekends with his wife, Marnie, a fashion industry consultant, at his home in New York State's Hudson Valley, sitting on his veranda smoking cigars.

Michael Frey, of Freyboy Tobacco, in Las Vegas, is one of Tihany's clients, as well as a longtime friend. Tihany designed the short-lived Freyboy Tobacco in New York City's Grand Central Terminal, a cigar shop with a smoke motif highlighted on the floor tiles. Frey says that he loved working with Tihany because of his passion for everything. "I have a story that's a perfect example of why. We were in Buenos Aires traveling with our wives, and we walked across a famous bridge designed by the Spaniard, Santiago Calatrava. He talked for 30 minutes about what a perfect design it was," Frey recalls. "The next day, we'd flown to Uruguay and were on a beach, and we ordered a chivito, kind of the national sandwich. He went on and on about what a perfect sandwich it is. That's why I like working with him. He's a guy who gets passionate about a famous bridge, and the next day, he gets excited about a sandwich." Sorta says it all.

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