Food for Thought

When Chef Joho wanted a Web site to showcase his premier Eiffel Tower Restaurant, he asked Purple Monkey Studios to communicate the excitement of the Las Vegas property with the sophistication of its classic French cuisine. His vision for the site hinged on the total dining experience: great food, intimate atmosphere, stunning views. This required balancing design with technical requirements to convey both elegance and drama.

Agnes Williams, Art Director for Purple Monkey Studios, commented that the challenge was to create a design that was "exciting but beautiful… we had to express the Las Vegas excitement without losing the high profile of the Eiffel Tower Restaurant." As such, the goal for this site was to generate that energy from the first view of the Web site. The home page for the site, http://www.eiffeltowerrestaurant.com/, is done completely in Flash. Using static photographic elements, images of the acclaimed cuisine display on a background of the Vegas view seen from the dining room. The central image shifts from the namesake Eiffel tower to a glass of champagne to a vase of lilies, and then to featured menu items. Flash navigation carries the "lights" theme throughout the site. This subtle use of animation provides movement but in an understated way.

One of the project requirements was to provide guests with a preview of the restaurant. The link, Preview Experience, provides a tour that begins outside the restaurant with its namesake tower shown in the night lights, then moves to the glass elevator, through the kitchen and bar, to the seating area where diners can take in the water fountain show from the Bellagio. The intent is to visually overwhelm the diner, not just with the world class food, but with the sights of Las Vegas.

The navigation for the page is purposefully simple so the focus remains on the restaurant and not on the technology. From the Restaurant link, diners can take a virtual tour of the dining room or learn more about Chef Joho's background. Diners can also use the online reservation system to search for available tables. The site can also be viewed in French.

Another challenge was balancing the requests of the client with the budget and schedule. The client's careful attention to details, which earned him status as an acclaimed chef, carried over into the visual treatment of the site. He was involved in directing the design of each page, expecting the same exacting performance from the designers that he expects from his own staff. It was important to Chef Joho that the design team understood the concept of his restaurants, his customers and the classic French cuisine. To translate the Chef's concept for the site, the Purple Monkey designers visited his restaurants to take in the atmosphere, observe the level of service and detail, and sample the food. The team then submitted three designs for the Eiffel Tower Restaurant home page. The review process was demanding. Chef Joho wanted every page to be crafted to perfection, especially in selecting photographs that were quality and reflective of the Vegas location. Through an intense collaborative and iterative process, the final design combined the right ingredients to satisfy his demanding expectations.

The Eiffel Tower Restaurant Web site was one of three Chef Joho sites that were developed concurrently. All three are launched from the Chef's personal landing page (www.chefjoho.com), which Purple Monkey Studios also designed. While there needed to be a unifying design, each restaurant site had to communicate its unique atmosphere and offerings. The programmers created Web page templates for each restaurant site, incorporating simple navigation. Each site also linked to the OpenTable reservation form and allowed diners to sign up for newsletters and event notifications. The challenge for Purple Monkey Studios was to create a distinctive style for each restaurant site, and still maintain the corporate standards set by the mother company, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises.

The theme of balancing expectations with budget, sophistication with energy, food with atmosphere was infused throughout the project. The Purple Monkey Studios team of designers, programmers, and project managers collaborated to ensure that Chef Joho's influence was carried from the kitchen to the Web site.

By Becky Harris, Purple Monkey Studios Inc.