Custom Lighting Captivates in VUA Vietnamese Restaurant

Much-needed renovations to downtown Montreal’s 20/20 building took the location from a dreary tunnel between offices and the city’s subway system to a bright and modern restaurant destination for the university crowd and office workers alike.

At the northeast corner of the building, surrounded by large glass windows sits the building’s newest centerpiece, VUA, a Vietnamese restaurant known for its affordable and delicious fare.

Recently opened to the public, the restaurant’s location in the bustling center of downtown Montreal was designed and overseen by the award-winning DiMarco Ferrao Design group, known for their cutting-edge design interiors in some of the city’s most talked-about restaurant locations.

When it came to designing VUA, DiMarco Ferrao needed to create a concept worthy of the prime real estate while still reflecting the restaurant’s Asian influences.

While narrow, the bright space combined with rustic wooden floors and paneling is reminiscent of days at sea on Vietnamese fishing boats. Red accents, photographs of boats and a rope sculpture complete the nautical imagery, while large wooden statement pendants are both delightfully playful and complementary within the design.

Chosen for its visual impact, VUA’s lighting was custom made to stand out on this busy street corner and draw the eye inward. Drawing on the rustic charm of Vietnamese heritage, the firm turned to Bloom Lighting Group to help create standout wooden pendants to provide a sense of tradition mixed with the unexpected.

Located down the length of the restaurant, the large wooden pendant fixtures have a distinctive hexagonal shape composed of 2 ½” x ¼” plywood slats with wood veneer stained and lacquered. Visible 45° metal corner angles in rustic brown fuse the structure together, while a 2’ rustic brown rigid metal rod attached to a 4” dome ceiling canopy meets a top 2” metal cross-structure that is also reflected in the pendant’s bottom. Measuring 5’ tall, and 2’6” wide, each pendant is fitted with two rows of four 60W filament bulbs that project their rustic, antique charm through the wooden slats.