Samna is a restaurant of Middle Eastern cuisine that is located in the historic part of Kyiv in the building erected in 1797. The restaurant occupies the basement and the first floor.
We started this project from research the history of the building. We found out that at the beginning of the XIX c the house used to belong to Constantine Ypsilantis who was an important statesman of the Ottoman Empire.
We had to find the right balance between the quoting rich historical background of the place and shaping our own contemporary vision of the restaurant. The idea was not to overdo it.
Solid brick walls and arc domes define the aesthetics of the venue. We emphasized some authentic elements and created on their basis a new interior.
There is plenty of copper in the restaurant’s interior. It emphasizes the nobility of the place and works as an impressive contrast with laconic shapes. The soft shade of copper is also present in the restaurant’s illumination where we use light beam reflections.
Besides copper in the interior, you can see solid oak, leather, and steel. We chose them as materials that were wildly common when the “Ypsilantis House” was flourishing.
