Canberra’s newest bar and dining experience, Tongue & Groove has officially opened its doors to the public.

Paul Kelly of ‘Paul Kelly Design’, is behind this masterpiece of a fit-out, which transforms into an up-market ‘lounge bar’ at night. Customised hydraulic pendent drop-lights lower two meters and complete the intimate, ‘after-dark’ feel.

The Tongue & Groove team has added enviable trimmings to the large space, that’s raw concrete beams don a post-modern industrial feel. Wall murals, plush lounges and long timber benches dominate and add warmth to the space. Tongue & Groove also incorporate the use of Enviro Foam, an environmentally friendly foam that provides insulation for noise, resulting in perfect acoustics.

The concept of the space is a centrally located contemporary and vibrant pizza bar, with various areas and facilities for all types of customers, irrespective of the time of day or night. The interior shell is a newly built six metre high retail space under the ATO building in the centre of Canberra, on two of the most recognizable streets for city residents.

The concrete Y frames were existing and have been used as a central feature to the main dining and lounge space with a custom sculpture running over the two frames, and up lighters enhancing the extending concrete arms. The area has three major features: a moving pendant lighting rig with 42 custom pendants on a staging truss that raises and lowers the lights from 5000mm to 2000mm for day and night, a sixty metre square hand painted post cold war industrial artwork, painted on the rear wall over a period of 4 weeks and a feature custom stainless steel and LED paper pendant extending with 80 individual support frames across the entire length of the space, holding 2000 A4 sheets of the rear artwork pulling them from the rear wall through the space. Between these are suspended LED tubes to illuminate at night.

The project features several different areas all connecting and mixing uses. The Kitchen area to the rear of the space houses the pizza outlet as well as the grill cooking line, and is centrally located to all areas for fast service. The Bar area faces Bunda Street and has three sides allowing customers to be served, as well as a two-storey display cabinet for product.

The interior of the space is bounded by a large amount of outdoor casual beverage / dinning that access the bar via complete width bi-folds (plus two doors for inclement weather), and also on the side adjacent to the lounge area, with fully operable windows that allow connection between the chesterfields and the customers outside.

The bar area has two zones for high table drinking, one with a large sports screen and the other directly feeding the outdoor area on Bunda Street. The corner zone has low leather and timber lounging with full view to the corner street outside. There is also standing room and live music performance space.

The bar front is a Nero Marquina Marble to face, with a solid laminated timber American oak bar top. The bar of bar display is a six metre high recessed mirror light box, with LED to edges and adjustable glass shelves. Above the bar are 42 custom black aluminum pendants with gold interior and custom three head spindle, they are attached to a motorised staging truss that allows the lights to be at a high level during the day for maximum natural lighting, and to drop by night to allow for atmosphere creation.

The main central dining area in between the two concrete Y frames is a mid height communal table concept. This area divides the lounge and main dining zone. The lounge zone bounds the glazing to Genge St and consists of classic chesterfield lounges with cocktail tables between. The rear of the space features a raised platform with dining to banquette, below the sixty metre square mural, then the dining area extends across to the kitchen pass through area.

Throughout the floor is a burnished polished concrete, with distributed blue basalt stone to the centre of walkways to age the floor. The carpets used in the job are custom Persian influenced carpets by Tascot Templeton.

The whole concept is bounded by a black six metre high ribbed acoustic wall, with track lighting by Inlite positioned on each extrusion.

The furniture was custom designed, and was manufactured by Hughes Commercial and Funk Furniture using solid timbers and classic leathers.