Indigo walls and furniture form dining areas for this Japanese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, while geometric-patterned wall surfaces match the menus and tableware.
Tonchin New York is the latest in a chain of family-run eateries. But is the brand's US debut, and brothers Anan and Toi Sugeno's first venture on their own.

They asked Brooklyn-based creative studio Carpenter & Mason to guide the aesthetic for the restaurant, located just north of the Empire State Building, to "design a Japanese restaurant that didn't feel traditionally Japanese".
"Our material and formal choices were inspired by traditional Japanese textiles, colours and techniques (Boro, Kintsugi, Shou Sugi Ban), but with a sense of playfulness to keep our references from feeling too heavy and too literal," said Carpenter & Mason co-founder Sarah Carpenter.
Fronted with translucent polycarbonate, the lofty space on 36th Street is long and narrow, and organised in a linear succession. The bar is reached first, followed by the main dining area, then the kitchen at the back.
A small table with seating is also tucked into the corner by the front window, to create a waiting area during busy times.

Indigo was chosen as the dominant colour ? following a trend for dark-toned interiors that first emerged at Stockholm Design Week earlier this year.
The shade is used as a stain for timber posts and beams that form a row of dining booths, opposite an upholstered bench seating line that is...