2023 Gallery
Winner: Best Restaurant Design
Fiona Lynch Interior Design for Kiln, Ace Hotel Sydney
53 Foy Lane
Sydney, NSW
New restaurant and bar Kiln is on the top floor of Ace Hotel Sydney, the first Southern Hemisphere launch by the US Ace Hotel group. Fiona Lynch Office’s interior design embraces the uniquely Australian setting and landscape, reflected in the colour palette, sustainable materials, craftsmanship and collaborations with local artisans.
Jury Citation
Kiln takes hotel dining to new heights, literally. Perched atop the Ace Hotel in the heart of downtown Sydney, its design plugs into current conversations about sustainability, collaboration and community. Collaborations with local artisans, including Henry Wilson and Spacecraft Studio, honour the site’s history – it hosted Australia’s oldest known ceramic kilns during the 1820s. For Kiln, pigments were mixed out of waste materials recovered from the site. Despite Ace’s global presence, the restaurant’s palette of dusky pinks, greens and blues is of the Australian landscape. Locally sourced materials echo this, from leather tabletops to stone floors and raw timber furniture. The space is original and playful, its many-layered interiors inviting discovery. Further, it demonstrates a restaurant’s ability to bring several design stories into a single space. By capturing a moment in time for Australian interior design, it is just as much a restaurant for locals as for visitors, mirroring a global trend of high-quality hotel dining.
