Six Australia and New Zealand hospitality designs have been announced as winners of the 2014 Eat Drink Design Awards, announced on November 18 at Melbourne’s Ormond Hall.

The Best Bar, Restaurant, Café, Temporary, Retail and Identity Design category awards were handed out on the night, along with 21 High Commendations and one Hall of Fame inductee.

The projects, which came from a variety of interior designers and architecture firms from New Zealand and Australia, were first narrowed from 150 entries to a shortlist of 68 projects back in August.  

The full list of the winning projects and jury excerpts below:

BEST BAR DESIGN

  • Clever Little Tailor By Xtra Shiny, Adelaide.

Photographer: David Sievers

“Everything about Clever Little Tailor, an Adelaide laneway bar in a repurposed early-twentieth-century loading dock, is carefully considered and admirably consistent,” said the jury.

“It's a design that invites you in and makes you want to stay - surely the perfect combination for any hospitality space.”

BEST RESTAURANT DESIGN

  • Rockpool est. 1989 by Grant Cheyne Design, Sydney

Photographer: Earl Carter

“There's an almost monastic restraint to the design of Rockpool, Neil Perry's flagship restaurant, which relocated from Sydney's Rocks to the heritage-listed Burns Philp Building in the CBD in late 2013,” said the jury.

“The beautifully crafted shell with its balcony-like mezzanine, ornate columns and ironwork, impressive arched, timber-framed windows that overlook Bridge Street and soaring ceiling heights has a wealth of natural and historic advantages.”

“The black-on-black colour scheme is most dramatic at night when light is focused on the tables and parts of the room seem to disappear altogether, except for a glimmer of glazed tile or the shadowy texture of wall and column surfaces.”

BEST CAFÉ DESIGN

  • A. Baker by DesignOffice, Collingwood.

Photographer: Scottie Cameron

“Part of a series of well-integrated, beautifully realized "culinary destinations" occupying the ground floor and basement of Canberra's heritage-listed New Acton Pavilion, the cafe at A. Baker is a refreshingly brutal space with the building's dramatic recent history etched into the walls,” said the jury.

“There's a wonderfully organic feel to the layout...The solidity of concrete - including cast concrete seats with leather upholstery - mixes with an abundance of natural light during the day, making what could have been a stark and slightly forbidding space warm, sculptural and subtly inviting.”

BEST TEMPORARY DESIGN

  • Coffee PEDDLR by Ruined City, North Melbourne

Photographer: Breeana Dunbar

“This cheerful ray of sunshine coffee van perfectly encapsulates what the Best Temporary Design category is all about - the innovative ways in which hospitality can be delivered,” said the jury.

“One of the most impressive features of the van is the use of materials like plywood and vinyl flooring that are not only necessarily light and hard-wearing but that also mirror the H van's design aesthetic and are coupled with the history of the Citroen "workhorse." 

“Folding awning and opening panels provide the practical advantages of shelter and access, while also underlining the playful, toy-like nature of the van, further underlining this mobile business's very distinct and very unique personality.”

BEST RETAIL DESIGN

  • The Standard Market Company, Gasworks Newstead by Richards & Spence, Fortitude Valley QLD.

Photographer: Toby Scott

“With its uplit vaulted ceiling, terracotta floor tiles, white glazed wall tiles and abundant displays of fruit and vegetables piled high on tables modelled on old wooden trestle tables and fruit crates, The Standard Market Company consciously nods at the traditional,” said the jury.

“This blend of traditional and modern creates a thoroughly attractive tension in the space so that the store feels both large and intimate, sophisticated and modest. The design is also refreshingly straightforward, clearly focused on the product but in clever, theatrical, entertaining ways - the arched ceiling, the integrated lighting, the sausage-making butchers - that make it an ideal template for how attractive and efficient food retailing can be.”

BEST IDENTITY DESIGN

  • Seafarers / Ostro by Inhouse, Auckland

Photographer: Patrick Reynolds, Dean Foster

“Seafarers, a recently renovated building located on Auckland's harbour front, has a strong maritime history (it once housed the Auckland Sailors' Home) which has been cleverly reflected in its visual identity, not by way of logos but through a quieter, more organic graphic language that riffs on both geometric maritime flags and etching-like drawings of classic nautical imagery,” said the jury.

“Eventually the building will house a series of hospitality businesses on every floor and the diverse but consistent visual design that's painted on the street-level roller doors and lift doors, printed on labels for house wine and spirits and used for bathroom signage and beer tap lenses is strong, fresh and flexible enough to successfully encompass these future endeavours.”

HALL OF FAME

  • Meyers Place by Six Degrees architects, Melbourne (1994)

Photographer: Peter Bennetts