New Manhattan restaurant Vandal has brought the artwork and culinary delights of streets from around the world to the Bowery.
The Rockwell Group collaborated with UK-based graffiti artist HUSH on the catacomb-esque space, which features a bar, lounge, secret garden and even a flower shop.
Rich Wolf – founder of the TAO Group, which runs Vandal – said: ‘The idea of bringing street food and street art together under one roof struck me like a bolt of lightning.’
HUSH curated pieces for the 22,000 sq ft restaurant’s walls, bringing on board six other street artists, including Shepard Fairey and Will Barras, to create site-specific murals. For Vandal’s ‘Secret Garden’, which is closed off by glass garage doors, Fairey wheat-pasted a couple of the surfaces with propaganda-style posters.
Added HUSH: ‘I wanted to bring the outside inside. I wanted to represent street aesthetics and show how artists take over spaces.’
The Rockwell Group designed an 11ft-tall sculpture of a breakdancing rabbit, which stands proud at the end of a long, vaulted brick tunnel. Elsewhere, the practice off-set the space’s concrete and exposed brickwork with warmer details, such as leather sofas and glass globe lights.
Food comes from executive chef Jonathan Kavourakis, who travelled the globe – from Peru and Argentina to Vietnam and Singapore – to craft a menu that brings together the world’s best street food.