Woodcut at Crown Barangaroo Celebrates Wood, Charcoal and Steam

Sunny and Ross Lusted provided loopcreative architect, Rod Faucheux, with a 40-page inspiration booklet for designing the 1000sqm Pyrmont harbourfront restaurant, Woodcut.

The Woodcut concept is inspired by the couple’s extensive travels and the memories evoked by meals cooked in wood burning ovens and over smouldering coals. The restaurant has four open kitchens cooking with wood, charcoal and steam that offer diners both flavour and spectacle.

Faucheux has designed a dramatic ceiling-scape comprising a matrix of MDF boxes finished to look like heavily charred timber. The 350 individual boxes are laid out in a grid with a 5-6sqm repeat. The joiners commissioned Di Emme to provide the finish. Di Emme artisans painted the boxes with timber cross-sections and then added the charcoal effect. Applying a fast-drying layer of paint over a slow-drying layer causes the paint to crackle; Di Emme took this process to the extreme to give the custom wood an authentic scorched timber finish.  

The Woodcut space makes clever and creative use of timber and stone with the “charcoal” ceiling adding to the rich theatre of the space.