type: restaurant
location: Kyiv, Ukraine
area: 680 m2
status: built (2019)
team: Oleg Volosovskiy, Maria Chobotar, Yulia Klimenko, Natalia Galtseva
photo credits: Andrey Avdeenko

Sam’s Steak House Prime is located in a beautiful 18th-century mansion in the center of Kyiv overlooking the boulevard and park area.

It includes a lobby, a souvenir shop, a meat display refrigerator), two main dining rooms on two floors, a wine room, two tasting areas, and a grill room with an eight-meter ceiling.

What is needed to cook meat? Stone, wood, fire, and salt. These are the main anchors of a strict, restrained, confident, “masculine” interior. Therefore, the materials and their legends become essential “characters.” Stone processing, metal smelting, and wood-burning are reflected in the interior as symbols of man’s “conquest” of natural resources. Special attention is paid to salt as an essential ancient mineral in the gastronomic culture of mankind. In this interior, rock salt has acquired an additional function – building and finishing.

Fire is our passion. The dynamic panel above the open grill is hot coals flickering in the dark. Illumination along the perimeter of the portals and along the walls of the restaurant is the frozen light of the fire. And the thin lines of the lamps seem to be covered with sparks scattering from the fire. The art object on the wall of the chamber space on the first floor is a herd of bulls returning from the pasture in the rays of the setting sun.

The main internal volume of the mansion is occupied by massive stone and metal blocks of open kitchens on two floors. Both kitchens are functionally connected to each other along the vertical axis by two food lifts. These elevators are a complex mechanism implemented in the spirit of steampunk, the era of steam engines. All interior elements are subordinated to the visual and functional dominance of the open kitchen, which on the ground floor, in conjunction with the stairs of the wine department, resembles a massive chipped rock. This zone conveys the atmosphere of a joint dinner of strong and like-minded people. The impression is complemented by a group of stone tables and lamps above them with a soft red glow, as well as massive logs for planting. Under the glass podium are illuminated slabs of rock salt as an authentic artifact. The columns, enclosed in the same material, fascinate guests with an unexpected solution. When combined with water, the process of continuous crystallization of the salt begins, which can be observed over time. And just try the column on your tongue, wonder and delight. A logical continuation of the idea of ​​an open kitchen is the chef’s table, meticulously assembled by a Ukrainian master using complex technology from small wood blocks.

The grill room is a unique and effective place for an intimate gathering of people around the fire. It was created by the architects individually for the high domed space, taking into account all the technological processes that take place during the sacrament of cooking on the fire. Since the inception of civilization, fire has always been the center of human life. Mighty Vikings, skilled hunters, built their dwellings, called Halle, around the hearth. In its very heart, the Vikings gathered in large families, cooked meat, told stories, and kept the fire alive as a symbol of life. We took this concept as a basis and implemented it with the help of modern technologies in a separate area of ​​the restaurant, which was named Halle. In the center of the room, eight meters high, there is a large stone table with an open fire and a specially designed huge domed hood. The establishment’s chef can give a show-master class for fourteen guests, or guests can cook grilled meat on their own. The walls are decorated with wallpaper, drawings made by designers of the loft buro based on authentic Scandinavian patterns, and slabs of natural rock salt. Warm amber backlighting creates the feeling that the reflections of a flame have scattered across the room.