• Michael Gebert
  • Karen Herold in the entry of Studio K, which serves to show some of the textures she likes to use in her restaurant projects

We’re close to the point of believing in an auteur theory of restaurants, in which they spring fully formed from the heads of chefs, so maybe it’s time to remind ourselves that there are also restaurant owners (who are like producers) and other kinds of professionals involved in our total experience as diners. Specifically, there are restaurant designers, who are a little bit like production designers (devising the look of the set), cinematographers (creating the atmosphere with light), and editors (making the experience invisibly smooth) all in one.

Karen Herold: It’s funny because it’s actually very close to how you learn it in school. I didn’t learn it in school because I went to fashion school, but it’s the same process. First thing is we meet with our clients, the chefs or the operators or both. And 90 percent of the information I need, I’ll get out of that first meeting. We just talk, and we hang out—I always say, it doesn’t matter if we shop or have a drink, I just need to be around you for two hours. And just by the way you speak and what you wear, I know what environment you need to feel good in.

I was lucky that we started with clients who were our clients for many many years. Because we never handed them a package and said, “Here’s your design, good luck, pay us, and we’ll see you at the opening, maybe.” We were there the two weeks before opening, we were at the opening, we were there two weeks later, a year later. So you really know the operations and you know where it doesn’t work.

People shouldn’t be able to see the system?

For instance, a leather bartop. There’s a lot of resistance to leather bartops, and the first person who allowed me to do it was Steve Wynn. And the fact that I’ve never heard one complaint, and he’s someone who really strives for perfection. And the restaurant’s been open, I think, three or four years now, and it’s still perfect. Now, it wears, like leather boots and saddles and handbags, but it gets prettier with the years.

So the two most important things are layers of surfaces and layers of lighting. Because you can layer lighting too.