Il Pirata | Oscar & Oscar

Restaurateur Sam Spain and chef Tony O'Neill wanted to introduce Belfast to a new Italian dining experience where the emphasis was on small, rustic dishes but overall, to a more sharing and casual dining experience as might be found in a Venetian Bacaro. This informality was to be expressed and enhanced through the material quality and the tone of the space itself. In addition, our clients wanted the end result to evoke a sense of place that was more Meat Packing District, New York than High Street, Holywood, County Down. In other words, they wanted a restaurant which would be evocative of a space that customers may have experienced on their travels to such cities as Berlin, London and New York rather than simply reflecting the narrower frame of reference of the local restaurant scene. We, Oscar&Oscar [a Reclamation & Design company] responded to this brief by accepting much of the roughness revealed from the removal of the previous materials....in part to embrace a paired back aesthetic [revealing the structural steelwork and exposed blockwork] and also to challenge the preconceptions of the Northern Irish diner on their associations with Italian restaurants and dining in Northern Ireland in general. Risky business. As a counterpoint to the voluminous industrial sensibility we wanted to embrace, we worked hard to simplify all of the various elements so that together there would be a coherence of detail and lightness of touch which would deliver [to the diner] a delicate balance between the vastness of an uncompromising, edgy space and a warm and cosy eating experience that will affect more than their taste buds in a positive sense. The budget with which we worked was a fraction of the industry standard at the time, yet this restriction we believe enhanced, rather than hindered end result. Oscar&Oscar in the end supplied everything from the salvaged timber [from a demolished villa nearby] to the lighting elements, the tiling and many of the furnishings [some specially constructed] at a fraction of the normal cost.