Restaurant Interiors

What struck me about your Swiss restaurant interior was the care you took to make your entry as symmetrical as possible - the perfect central alignment adds to your mirrored effect. The lines of the wooden banisters and balconies, serve to lead the viewer through the affluent establishment past tables, pillars and chandeliers to the far end of the orange-coloured decor. Straightening the frame so that your beautiful photo sits squarely within your composition has gone a long way to help you win this challenge. Well done.

The limited palette of purple and silver colours adds to the ostentatious yet simple charm of this Milanese turn-of-the-century restaurant. Your composition has justifiably concentrated on the interior decor fashioned by two of Italy’s leading craftsmen. But by including the diners in the left hand corner you’ve put the emphasis of the room in its rightful context. The waiters, dressed in matching restaurant colours, show the care that’s gone into maintaining the establishment’s corporate image just like the care you’ve taken to compose your chandelier lit interior.

This beautiful glass-topped table reflects the artistic splendour of the magnificent restaurant in Doha. The sumptuously decorated Arabic walls are conducive to opulent eating, inside the ostentatious dining room, reserved for sixteen lucky guests. The gold chairs with red trimming serve to complete the luxurious grandeur. I hope you got to eat there after you took your resplendent photograph.

Your plush lounge at St.Pancras station is reminiscent of the restaurant coach inside the luxury Orient Express train from late 1800s. Indeed the view through the platform window could actually be the glamorous train itself. Your use of diagonal lines has given your photo a sense of anticipated speed for the journey ahead. Although small, at the bottom of the frame, it’s the dining tables and lights encased on three sides by posh padded seating that have given your photo its point of interest.

What drew me to your entry was the rustic atmosphere created inside the tiny bohemian restaurant. Decorated with a smorgasbord of unrelated items including guns, pitchforks and a painting of bawdy drinkers adding to the unorthodox setting. The rolled up red and white napkins cap the localised ambience by looking like triangular fez hats. If the menu matches the moorish quirkiness - I’d want to eat there!

This small, entertainment-themed restaurant in Lima could be giving the larger and grander Hard Rock Cafe a bit of local competition. Both have music memorabilia featured in their diners but your cafe has a much more artisan feel, suggesting home-made cooking rather than the worldwide franchise fare served up at Hard Rock. Your straight on, no nonsense, photo composition is in keeping with the no-standing-on-ceremony ambience of the Peruvian eatery. ‘It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (But I Like It).

The saying ‘square peg in a round hole’ came to mind the moment I saw your photo of the round table with chairs set in an inaccessible square layout. This must be the most impracticable seating arrangement I’ve ever seen. How could eight of the twelve people sitting around the table manage to reach their plates? As a judge I look for submissions that are different and quirky - you’ve certainly managed that with your Chinese conundrum. At least the diners can say they’ve have a square meal - at a stretch!

It’s rather apt that your photo of a Times Square restaurant is built around a rather harassed looking waiter checking his watch, presumably to see what time his shift ends. What I like about your haphazardly busy interior is that the people look as if they’ve been individually placed by you and told to freeze their positions while you take their photo. It’s almost impossible for a composition to gel with so many people in the frame so the success of your entry is down to your perfect timing - and a large dose of good luck.

Everything in this restaurant photo is about the diners. From the hand holding a glass in the bottom of the frame leading up to the people standing at the tapas bar. The close proximity of the tables means that the diners have deliberately forgone any privacy in exchange for eating at what looks like a very popular restaurant. The informality means that the waiter, whilst opening a bottle of wine at one table, has room to advise people about the menu at the next table. I think a colour rendition would have ruined your entry so I’m glad you chose monochrome to give your composition a black and white uniformity.

Unusual for entries in this challenge you have managed to capture a light and airy pastel-coloured restaurant. Most photographers would have avoided using the glass partition (separating the deli from the eatery) but you have deliberately incorporated it into your composition giving your interior an added narrative. Your straight-edged rendition works very well - I like how the thick black line travels from the left hand corner, along the top and down to the base of your photo where it lands to underline the table and chairs.