anif Harji adhered to a two-word ethos ("hip dining") when creating his fleetingly iconic Blowfish Restaurant, but his latest big-budget resto-lounge eschews the Japanese restaurant's pastel glamour in favour of hard-edged, in-your-face design. Indeed, you can now slot Kultura in there alongside other restaurants that, while reaching for exclusively masculine sight lines, romances the historical building in which it resides.

Kultura, like Blowfish, is carved out of a historic gem. It's a breathless restaurant design in its own right, yet the entire retrofit of the landmark pushes the best elements of the original site to a glorified level, making the building quip, “Look at me.”

There's an intoxicating idea behind this three-level restaurant design. Though forcing diners up a purple back-lit stairway to a second-level restaurant, thus liberating the main level for lounge activities, smacks of cocky, private-club hubris, the intention is innocent: Kultura wants to utilize a drop-dead beautiful space.

While the main floor exudes brash energy, the meticulously structured and elegantly composed second level effuses chill. The long narrow space fuses righteous heritage with an interior designer's new interpretation, packaged with exposed brick and dark wood floors. At the back of this level, an adjacent room – The Grand Room – showcases a communal table made of 200-year-old oak.