Long a beacon for the sketchier end of London’s Oxford Street, Centre Point has undergone a transformation in recent years. From brutalist 1960s office tower to a luxury complex with apartments, restaurants and retail units, the structure’s reincarnation is now complete with the opening of VIVI, a flagship restaurant led by hospitality group Rhubarb.
A combination of four slick spaces – VIVI Bar, VIVI Dining, VIVI Gallery and VIVI Liquid Lounge – VIVI manages to be both a pit stop and late night hangout, offering everything from classic cocktails in an homage to old school bartending, to a nostalgic all-day menu of British dishes, updated for a crowd who perhaps wouldn’t remember them from the first time around.
The space bears all the hallmarks of a Rhubarb project. Dramatic jewel-toned velvets and marble surfaces mingle in the four distinct areas, each flooded with natural light via floor-to-ceiling windows, which also offer unrivalled views of the Oxford Street buzz below, albeit from a peaceful distance.
The crowning glory is the bespoke plexiglass and brass chandelier, which hangs over the curvilinear bar that is clad with the plated bronze metallic Harper tile by Giles Miller Studio. Inspired by 1960s Italian design, French art nouveau and Bauhaus modernism, the chandelier is designer Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt’s first public commission in the capital – a fitting debut in this revival of a London icon. §
