Smith Restaurant was converted from a former 3 story nightclub, in the heart of the Torontoʼs Village. The challenge was to erase not only the elements of any nightclub reference but to completely erase the perception of what that building within the landscape of the street.

Commute Home capitilized on the Victorian 3 storey home – like exterior and extended that to the 55 seat main room dining room. The idea was to keep elements of what you would imagine the home to have in itʼs 1800ʻs glory and reincorporate them in the restaurant as details. Details such as antique plates and cutlery feels like a dinner party where the host scrambled together everything in their cupboards to elegantly serve to their guests.

Deconstructed foundry moulds, painted out white to create a layered and complex puzzle of pieces line one wall of the restaurant. The facing wall has antique mirrors, whose silver is peeling away to reveal rosebud wallpaper that would have been reminiscent of the homes 1800ʼs presence on that street.

The entrance is a custom installation of 5 different layers of wallpapers. “That space, in particular, looks like we were trying to strip the wallpaper off, and instead kept finding more wall paper, to the point where we abandoned the job halfway and kept what was there. No one knows that this was a new element within the space.”