A New York restaurant run by a New Zealander is getting high fives and backslaps for its beautiful food and its interior. The Musket Room opened in 2012 in the downtown neighbourhood of Manhattan’s Nolita. Owned by Aucklander Matt Lambert, it serves high-end, New Zealand-inspired cuisine – cold-smoked scallops, imported red deer flavoured with gin, passionfruit pavlova with strawberries and cream – that was rewarded with a Michelin star in October.

The eatery is being praised also for its sophisticated dining room, which includes a six-metre bar made from walnut timber and mid-century modern furniture and chandeliers. The interior was designed by Alexander Waterworth Interiors, a fledgling British design firm, and was praised by New York magazine’s restaurant reviewer Adam Platt for its “small, elegant back room”.

Lambert says he hired designing duo Alexander Evangelou and James Waterworth to create the décor, “because they are young and hungry. They were trying to make a name for themselves in New York City and so was I, so it seemed like a natural fit. The idea with the design was to keep it on the simpler side so that the food can stand out. They were able to achieve a beautiful dining room that doesn’t take away from what’s on the plates.”