A mélange of cobalt tile, chrome finishes, and walls awash in azure conspire for enchanted evenings tucked away in Only Love Strangers, a new bi-level cocktail lounge and restaurant on Manhattan’s Lower East Side designed by Brooklyn-based Studio Omar Aqeel for a newly-founded hospitality group helmed by directors Amelie Kang, Simona Petrovska, Christian Castillo, Irene Li, and Yishu He. Its electrified environment evokes the spirit of speakeasies where patrons may indulge in aphrodisiacs, imbibe craft cocktails, and vibe to live jazz.
When in full swing, the 6,300-square-foot space is blanketed with hearty whiffs of mediterranean cuisine throughout the ground level bar, lounge, and dining rooms just as the bleats, harrumphs, and exaltation of horns – often accompanied by torchy vocals – waft up through the well from the cocktail lounge and live performance space visible below. Aqeel references an ethos from the Roaring Twenties while applying aesthetic tenets from the 1950s and 60s for a subversive, retro-futuristic interior architecture. “We focused on raw assemblies, anachronistic discourse, transmutative perceptions, and material juxtapositions,” notes Omar Aqeel, founder of his eponymous studio. All that is to say, inquiring minds are encouraged to find themselves intoxicated on electric blue hues and blended harmonies of vintage, custom, and contemporary furnishings as they explore each zone following a visual narrative guided by the musings of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois.
A custom mobile by Max Simon
…The color blue means you have left the drabness of day-to-day reality to be transported into – not a world of fantasy – but a world of freedom where you can say what you like and what you don’t like. This has been expressed forever by the color blue…
Guests are greeted upon entry by the cantilevered brushed aluminum host stand illuminated with a vintage Goffredo Reggiani wall light. Moving forward through an extruded archway that feels more like a passage than a threshold is the adjoining bar room. Visitors are enveloped in floor-to-ceiling cobalt blue tiles with tone-on-tone blue grouting. Weary travelers can trade the din of New York for a moment anchored by the round-edged, wrap-around aluminum clad bar. The adjacent wall is lined with modern abstract banquettes upholstered in Verner Panton’s iconic 1969 “Black and White Optik” textile while the main dining space is marked by earthy limewash plastered walls intermixed with more brushed aluminum accents, Sottsass Grey tabletops, and additional banquette seating upholstered in Kvadrat’s cobalt blue wool.
But for a more private affair, a separate dining room provides plenty of privacy and contrast to the main space showcasing a maximalist wall-to-wall, hand-painted mural abstracting the Bauhaus grid. The room is also adorned with Ant chairs by Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen, a vintage Makio Hasuike for Seccose metro dining table, Maru pendant lighting by Ingo Maurer – and its own entrance with a branded door pull. Other honorable mentions from New York-based artists and designers staccatoed throughout include furnishings from Blue Green Works, Yuyu Shiratori, Nico Anon, Superabundance, Gregory Beson, Adriana Gallo, Ash Allen, and Lucas Willing Studios.
Curiosity piques with an elegant mobile by Max Simon suspended within voyeuristic egress, which allows for a view into the subterranean lounge through a lightwell surrounded by several intimate domed dining niches with blue crescent-shaped booths. A siren song of cobalt emanates from the 55-seat lower-level-lounge below calling for listeners to dive into the blue. Every inch is supersaturated in OLS’ signature inky hue for heightened senses to appreciate the texture of space and sound. And every orthogonal line becomes activated by human form that breaks the grid.
Baklava Sundae
Steamed Mussels
“We often hear that visiting OLS feels like being in a friend’s very chic apartment – you know, that kind you never want to leave,” the OLS team says. “It really is this feeling of being at a great party, people getting up and going to see what’s going on in the other room. It feels very special.”
Cocktails Post Bop, Acid, Bebop, and Groove
To experience OLS visit onlylovestrangers.com. And to learn more about Studio Omar Aqeel visit omaraqeel.com.
