Surprise Fillings

Materially speaking, there’s great variety at Café Darclée—a new Seattle spot serving crepes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “The concept came from the simple structure of the crepe itself: flour, egg, and water,” says Julia Sandetskaya, of local interior architecture studio MusaDesign. “When you combine a crepe with interesting fillings, it creates unexpected fusions. So we decided to use materials that are unexpected for restaurants.” Their choices—all sustainable—include Plyboo coconut plywood for the tables, recycled paper on the bar stools, and locally manufactured aluminum scaffolding, which was an inexpensive and visually interesting way to create the many shelves required. Particularly efficient are the custom-designed overhead lights (top right), which won an award from the International Interior Design Association. Made of an acoustical tile called Pep, from Robin Reigi, they soften noise and hide the HVAC system on the ceiling. “They’re sustainable because most of the bulbs are fluorescent,” Sandetskaya says. “We used amber filters to create soft light.”