Andy Baraghani’s New NYC Restaurant is Full of Design Surprises

“I’ve always been obsessed with design, since I was a kid,” says Andy Baraghani. “I love how restaurant interiors can take you to a different place.”At Ditto—the all-day café he is opening in New York’s Flatiron—the chef, cookbook author, and YouTube star has given that obsession free rein. With each design decision—from the vintage glass-prism Holophane pendants in the front window to the intense blue (tinted to match Benjamin Moore Buckland Blue) of the rear dining area’s Venetian plaster walls—he asked himself: “Would I actually do this in my home?” If the answer was yes, it passed the test.The interior of Ditto, with Venetian plaster walls in a shade matching Benjamin Moore Buckland Blue, and Model S22 chairs from Galvanitas. Photo: Adrian GautFor Andy Baraghani, design is something of a family affair. His husband, Keith Pollock, is a former AD editor and now a West Elm executive. But opening a restaurant was never part of the plan. In fact, when Michael Silber, a restaurant investor behind New York hot spots like Borgo, Penny, and Bistrot Ha, approached him with the idea of a laid-back restaurant open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Baraghani admits his first reaction was: “I have no interest.”It wasn’t for lack of experience. He had started his career in restaurants—from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, where he worked as a teenager, to Estela in New York—before becoming a food editor at Bon Appetit and winning a James Beard Award for his cookbook, The Cook You Want to Be.But he bonded with Silber over their shared love of greenmarket cooking and decorating deep dives. When it came to Ditto, he says, he wanted the space to convey his personal style. It helped that he and Silber were on the same page. “Andy and I talked about styles ranging from Bauhaus, de Stijl, and classic modernism to 1970s and ’80s aesthetics from places like Italy and France,” Silber says.The Bauhaus-inspired counter at Ditto. Photo: Adrian GautThey brought in like-minded collaborators: interior designer Eric Wink and architect Alta Indelman. Wink, a close friend of Baraghani who helped with the design of his and Pollock’s home, says the partners told him that New York’s much-missed City Bakery, which was two blocks uptown from Ditto’s 16th Street location, was an inspiration. “They wanted it to feel casual and approachable, with a bit of a New York diner quality,” Wink says.Holophane pendant lamps hang in the restaurant’s front window. Photo: Adrian GautThe space, in a 1905 former factory (its last incarnation was an agnès b. store), is divided into three zones. In the front section, visitors can shop at a market area with hand-picked groceries. A glossy white counter with Bauhaus curves anchors the middle section; this is where customers line up, take a number, and either carry the food out or dine at laminate-topped tables under a trio of oversized custom fabric pendants. The menu, handwritten on a roll of butcher’s paper and updated daily, features dishes like pomegranate spoon salad and what Baraghani calls “the Platonic ideal of granola,” with tahini, maple syrup, and yogurt drizzled with fig-leaf oil.Flaky Biscuits will be a signature dish. Photo Credit: Adrian GautThe third zone, the one painted blue, features an open kitchen and café tables pulled up to a banquette that runs the length of the room. “There’s that good chaos in the middle and the back is a calmer moment,” says Baraghani.Indelman, a veteran collaborator with New York restaurateurs like Andrew Tarlow and Gabe Stulman, was tasked with giving the space a utilitarian, high-tech ambience. She clad the walls and the open kitchen in patinated stainless steel and preserved industrial elements like structural arches and polished concrete floors.But it was Baraghani and Silber who took the lead on honing the visual details of the interiors. “We went through 50 possibilities to find the right chair,” Silber says. The one they selected—a 1960s Dutch industrial chair, the Model S22 from Galvanitas—was sourced from Amsterdam Modern in Los Angeles.Silber also spent hours on eBay bidding on midcentury ceramic bud vases. “They were each under $20 but put them together on a shelf and you have your own little Giorgio Morandi tableau,” he says.White wall speakers and a French ceramic mask hang above the banquette, tables, and stools upholstered in Maharam’s Stripe It fabric. The no-nonsense decor also features white wall speakers, created for the space by sound artist Tom Bloxam, and programmed with playlists created by Michael Scanlon of Chandelier Creative, which oversaw Ditto’s branding. But there are quirkier moments too. When it came to choosing fabric for the custom stools, Baraghani insisted on Maharam’s Stripe It, which he felt had a “Baja California” vibe. “We needed that twist,” he says. For his part, Wink specified his favorite stainless-steel toilet for the restrooms—Neo-Metro’s wall-mounted MiniLoo. “I added a custom wood top to soften it a bit,” Wink says.Meanwhile, a pair of massive midcentury French ceramic faces that hang on a wall opposite the menu of the day are on loan from Baraghani’s own home. “They anchor the space and add a touch of craft,” he says. “I just knew they needed to be here.”