Coast to Coast—Blue Door in the East

The owners of Charlotte, NC, lounge Blue Door spent years seeking the right location for a swank celebration of cocktail culture. Once they found it, mixologist Mike Guzmán set about building a “Great American Road Trip” menu, which features drinks with porcini mushroom cordial (The Portland), Sichuan peppercorn dust (The Las Vegas) and caramelized onion-infused gin (The Charleston). But they also needed to get things shaking with interior designer Carrie Frye of CFID Studio.

The restaurant’s name already indicated some less expected design directions. “Interestingly, in restaurant spaces, you don’t use a lot of blues because those aren’t food colors,” Frye says. But beyond the tradition-defying palette, Frye wanted to create a sense that everything was elevated to match what she knew would be a menu of heightened flavors. “A lot of times when we’re working on projects, we let one thing be the star, and everything else is in a supporting role. In this case, we wanted everything to be the star, but it had to play together well.”

Cambria’s Inverness Bristol Bay became one of those starring elements. “We ended up really leaning into the stone material because initially we had tile on the front of the bar, but we were looking at the pictures of the slabs, and we thought: you just don’t get the drama as much on the top as you could get if we also put it on the front.” Soon, Cambria was gracing tabletops, as well. “So, you’re seeing it vertically, you’re seeing it horizontally. It just really works.”

And though its mixologist intends to shake up Blue Door’s menu with fresh offerings every six months, Frye can be confident her design will remain a perfect pairing.