with the added caveat that he doesn’t believe
Caring cares at all what critics write about
him. “Places like Sexy Fish? They don’t care
whether we like them or not. They’re not inter-
ested in the English market. They’re not aimed
at us.”
If it is a problem that Caring’s property
empire and, by implication, Brudnizki’s design,
is the bar by which everything else is set –
that there is a danger that consumers get tired
of it and Brudnizki and Caring oversaturate
the market – Caring doesn’t see it. In fact, he
doesn’t believe his projects have anything in
common. “I’d say they were all completely
diverse. Everything we do, I think, is com-
pletely different.” He gestures around
himself, at Annabel’s ground-floor bar.
“Where else do you know in the world
that looks like this?” I answer honestly,
the first place that comes to mind: the
Palace Of Versailles. He laughs. “It’s
nothing like Versailles. Versailles doesn’t
have the art and the warmth that this
does. It doesn’t have the art or design.
With all due respect to Marie Antoinette
and Louis, they just spent trazillions on
luxurious work.”
He has half a point. It’s certainly
unfair to characterise all Brudnizki-
Caring collaborations as totally over
the top. The Guardian’s “silk socks” line
couldn’t apply to Aquavit, say, which is
far sleeker and lighter than Sexy Fish,
or Harry’s Bar or Daphne’s, which are
both a lot more traditional, if still lush
with detailing. Nonetheless, Brudnizki
is aware of the risks of success. He has
a brand to protect. “It is a concern,” he
says. “That’s why we try to limit our
work in the city to Richard.”In 2016, design journalist Kyle
Chayka wrote an article for the
Verge, in which he described a
pervasive style of design found in Airbnb
properties, hipster cafés and start-up
offices that he termed “AirSpace”. These spaces
could be found in Shoreditch as easily as
Brooklyn, Kreuzberg or Daikanyama and
were characterised by “white or bright accent
walls, raw wood, Nespresso machines, Eames
chairs, patterned rugs on bare floors, open
shelving, the neutered Scandinavianism of
HGTV”. All across the world, Chayka wrote,
these spaces were selling “the same faux-
artisanal aesthetic”.
There are those who would suggest that
Brudnizki’s design, thanks to its blend of
recognisability and comfort, is in danger
of becoming the higher-end version of
AirSpace. It’s not hard to envisage a story for
which Chayka travelled the world, staying
exclusively at five-star hotels that mimickedBrudnizki’s design and eating at Michelin-
starred restaurants that did the same.
In a million years, when scientists dig down
into the strata of archaeological history, there’s
a case to be made that the Brudnizki era will
have its own layer. At the moment, that layer
is about five to ten years thick; every year
that passes, hoteliers and interior designers
are adding to it. “I’ve seen projects by other
designers and I look at them, at the diagrams.
If you take all the finishes out, it’s like exactly
what we do.” And yet, he points out, the imita-
tors are always a few steps behind. “It’s great.
However, it’s what we did five years ago.” Even
Caprice Holdings is copying him in-house: onedining room at Scott’s features a fish tank built
into the bar – an idea straight out of Sexy Fish- and another has the same cut-agate floor
as Annabel’s Legacy Bar. Brudnizki designed
neither room himself.
Hayward accuses Brudnizki of “running
one great, long focus group”. Assuming inte-
rior design is essentially Darwinian and the
weakest, least popular styles don’t proliferate
in a competitive market environment, he sees
Brudnizki’s as the best blend of luxury, comfort
and cleanliness with the idea of individuality and
idiosyncrasy. It boasts “enough of the semiotics
of wealth and luxury to appeal, but it doesn’t
culturally offend”. Hayward makes a valid
point; there is a through-line of design that
links all of Brudnizki’s work, naturally, which
acts as an indicator of extreme luxury.
As for Brudnizki, he recalls a meeting the
day after the Brexit referendum when he and
his team discussed taking the business interna-
tional to insulate it from the turbulence in the
UK. “High Brudnizki” was going global. Recent
projects include the Beekman hotel in New
York, Four Seasons restaurant in Athens and
Pas D’Art restaurant in Stockholm. Then there’s
the ongoing Costes collaboration in Paris. In
America, “Annabel’s is the project they look
at and say, ‘We want that,’” says Brudnizki.
Hayward contends that the easy transla-
tion of the design across borders is a boon
to marketing: “If I went to a Michelin-starred
restaurant, I would expect to have pretty
much the same food, pretty much anywhere
in the world. And in design terms, the
same thing is happening, because
[the aesthetic] is actually servicing
super-rich international people.” The
food is “good”, he emphasises, as is
the design, but it’s the same eve-
rywhere that serves that particular
clientele. “The product itself is good.
It’s just not distinctive, creative, chal-
lenging or interesting.”
Brudnizki now spends between a
week and ten days each month in
New York, overseeing the US office
he founded in 2012 and now employs
25 people. “I have clients in America,”
Brudnizki continues, “who say to me,
‘You have to be careful who you work
for.’ Which is very true.” So no more
rollouts? “No more rollouts.” Brudnizki
is planning to launch his first standalone
collection under the And Objects banner
in October and has a raft of projects
lined up around the world, including a
number that he and Caring hint at but
won’t discuss. The New York office is
expanding. Last October, he returned to
Annabel’s to design Matteo’s, an Italian
restaurant that cleaves closer to the old
Annabel’s club (though it is named for
Caring’s son) and which was well received.
Brudnizki is currently beginning work
designing Caring’s planned new home in London,
which Caring describes as “Mediterranean and
fresh”, with “mixed modern and impression-
ist and old master art – if I can afford it”. For
Brudnizki, there’s only one thing that matters.
“The details are everywhere. There are no white
boxes. It’s going to be very nice. It’s going to
be beautiful.” GFortnum & Mason in Hong Kong, which blends the store’s
Georgian design influences with Eastern inflectionsMARTIN BRUDNIZKITOM DIXON (Aaron Callow, June 2019)
THE REOPENING OF ANNABEL’S SEES FOUR NEW
RESTAURANTS ON OFFER (Eleanor Halls, March 2018)
SEXY FISH CHARTS NEW WATERS FOR
RICHARD CARING (Bill Prince, December 2015)+^ More from GQ For these related
stories visit GQ.co.uk/magazine04-20FeatureMartinBrudnizki_3446750.indd 215 10/02/2020 15:21
APRIL 2020 GQ.CO.UK 215