Is the Restaurant Good? Or Does It Just Look Good?

New York Times

09-04-2025

How many shades of pink and orange can you fit into a single restaurant? At Papa San in Midtown Manhattan, the limit may not exist.
A neon-orange sign bearing the Peruvian Japanese restaurant's name — in chubby capital letters inspired by Japanese typography — flashes above the bar like a homing beacon over Hudson Yards. Customers sip pisco sours on branded pink coasters and visit a bathroom saturated in orange light. Employees wear burnt orange hats, descend a pink staircase and print checks over an orange table. Even an alcohol warning sign behind the bar includes the Papa San font and the word 'warning' in a popping rosy hue.
The design is so pervasive and striking that you might forget this sunset-shaded expanse also serves food. Erik Ramirez, the chef and an owner of Papa San, is well aware of this.
'Everything is branding nowadays,' said Mr. Ramirez, who owns two other Peruvian restaurants in New York City. For diners, 'I feel like the food element is kind of an after thought.'
A decade ago, the country's most buzzed-about restaurants were largely defined by the ambition of the food and the credentials of the chef. Now, they're all about atmosphere and appearance. For many diners who grew up in the visuals-obsessed Instagram era, a restaurant doesn't need to have a particular aesthetic — it just needs to have a memorable one.
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