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Call it the power of ambience.
In the five or so months since Spice Route opened its oversized temple-style doors on Toronto's fashionable King Street West, the super-chic bistro bar has garnered far more accolades for its exotic decor than for its menu – and with good reason. After all, pad thai and pot stickers (no matter how tasty) are just pad thai and pot stickers. But a restaurant boasting large-scale hand-carved Buddha statues, plush velvet banquettes, romantic beaded curtains and towering entry torches, as Spice Route does, isn't something you often see in a single setting.
Or is it? Lately, the free intermingling of pan-Asian influences and motifs has characterized some of the hottest spaces on the continent, from the Spice Market eatery in New York to the Setai Hotel in Miami Beach to TAO restaurant/nightclub in Las Vegas.
In Toronto, Spice Route's Buddhas may be dwarfed by TAO's 20-foot-tall golden version, but its name – a reference to the legendary trade route between the Far East and Europe – best encapsulates the style.
Ground sanaam chili from the Spice Trader’s Organic Indian Spice Box collection, $55 per eight-tin box at the Spice Trader
Photogallery
And it more than holds its own dramatics-wise.
“I wanted people to feel wowed when they walked into the space,” says Nadia Di Donato, who, as creative director of the Liberty Group, which owns Spice Route, designed the place. “I wanted people to feel as though they were somewhere else … not in Toronto.”
To be sure, they do, but where would that be exactly? Unlike rooms that are uniformly Chinese, Japanese or Indian in style, pan-Asian interiors draw heartily (some might say hastily) from a variety of cultures, just as those 17th-century traders did as they plied the Spice Route between China and Europe via Indonesia, India and the Middle East. The result, decoratively speaking, is a dynamic, unpredictable style than can border on kitsch if unrestrained. But it's compelling enough that everyday decorators are giving it a try.
“What we're seeing is a shift in consumer behaviour regarding Asian-inspired pieces,” says Andrew Rennie, marketing manager for Urban Barn, the furniture and housewares chain based in Coquitlam, B.C.
“… Instead of decorating entire rooms in red and black, people are choosing one or two select accent pieces and mixing these with other looks. People don't want their homes looking like a Thai restaurant or a Buddhist temple, but they are keen to make a visual statement.”
More specifically, that might mean augmenting either a contemporary or traditional room with an antique Chinese footstool, a Sumatran harvest basket or an Indian goddess icon – or maybe all three.
Also, “furniture manufacturers in the Far East have recently responded to this trend by creating stand-alone pieces in vivid and non-traditional colours … look out for turquoise, emerald greens and whites,” Rennie says.
Urban Barn's Yoke chair – a high-backed Chinese-red stunner that the company released last year – is a dramatic case in point; not long ago, it was made available in white, which gives it a much more contemporary air. At the same time, eternal Buddha has also been made over for the 21st century, appearing of late in a number of incarnations, from glossy black ceramics to transparent glass.
More literally, Spice Route style can also encompass warm spice colours, such as cinnamon red, turmeric yellow and nutmeg brown. Specific examples include Sico's Cinnamon Glaze (4149-53), Benjamin Moore's A Dash of Curry (2159-10) and Behr's Warm Nutmeg (SH-230).
Whatever the application, though, this current enchantment with exotic pan-Asian style is clearly yet another rejection of beige in decorating. After all, there is only so much neutral that a body can take. Every once in a while, rooms – like lives – require a little spice.
Recommended reading
For an excellent recent primer on the spice trade, check out John Keay's The Spice Route: A History (University of California Press). Epic in scope and meticulously detailed, it covers three millennia, from the ancient Egyptians who pioneered maritime trade to import Arabian incense to the Spice Route's heyday in the 17th century, when cinnamon and cloves were as valuable as gold and silver.
Another engaging book, Jack Turner's Spice: The History of a Temptation (Knopf), examines the historical intrigue behind black pepper. (Did you know, for instance, that you could once have had someone killed for a handful of peppercorns?)
Decorating-wise, Jenny De Gex's Asian Style: Creative Ideas For Enhancing Your Space (Rizzoli), looks at the colours, textures and imagery of the continent (especially China and Japan), while designer Kelly Wearstler's Domicilium Decoratus (Harper Collins) offers sumptuous examples of how to artfully weave together all kinds of ethnic styles.
D.S.
