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Modern Restaurant Ceiling Design: 12 Creative Options to Wow Your Guests

For restaurants, a welcoming and well-designed environment goes a long way towards creating a unique and memorable guest experience. Incorporating modern restaurant ceiling design can help restaurant owners take advantage of the “fifth wall” to create a design that wows from the appetizer to the dessert.

1. Use Earth Tones to Warm the Space

Earth tones, like browns, golds, greens, and tans, create a soothing space that allows diners to relax and soak in the conversation while also enjoying a delicious meal. Continuing the color scheme to the ceiling can create a cocoon of sorts that envelopes diners and makes them feel right at home.

2. Integrate Lighting

Integrate Lighting

Lighting a restaurant space can be a challenge, especially in large restaurants. You want diners to be able to see their dinner and dining companions, but you don’t want the lighting to be too bright or overwhelming. Integrating lighting into ceiling panels can put the lighting exactly where it’s needed.

3. Catch the Light

Catch the Light

This uniquely shaped ceiling installation catches the light that flows in from the large wall of windows and reflects it back into the space in an interesting and ever-changing way.

4. Think Outside the Box…Literally

Outside The Box

Even in outdoor dining spaces the “ceiling” shouldn’t be ignored. Rather than use standard umbrellas or sun sails, this restaurant design uses an interesting tangle of bars and canopies to create shade where it’s needed and add an unexpected element to the space.

5. Emphasize the Dining Area

Emphasize the Dining Area

Restaurants are often large, open spaces threaded with tables and booths for diners. Using the ceiling to delineate different areas can help define the spaces without using physical separation. In this space, for instance, the modern restaurant ceiling design incorporates patterned panels over the tables and unique lighting over the booth area.

6. Choose the Perfect Pattern

Choosing the Perfect Pattern


Because our laser cut metal panels offer over 60 pattern choices, you’ll be able to choose the perfect pattern for your space. Our panels include flowing patterns that seem to undulate just slightly, geometric patterns that create the illusion of three-dimensionality, dotted patterns that offer a playful element, and more.

7. Take the Design to the Walls

Take the Design to the Walls

To create a cohesive space, consider using elements of the modern restaurant ceiling design on the walls. This creates the opportunity for even more sound control while also enhancing the design. In the case of this design, the lighting behind the panels serves to outline them and add even more depth and dimension to the space.

8. Choose a Timeless Coffered Design

Choose a Timeless Design

Sometimes the old hits really are the best. Coffered ceilings are constructed with a series of recessed panels and have been around since ancient Greece and Rome. Initially, they helped to reduce the weight of the ceiling or integrate structural beams into the overall appearance of the ceiling, but modern coffered ceilings are decorative and hearken back to a bygone time.

9. Incorporate Natural Colors

Incorporate Natural Colors

Using natural colors in a design draws on our innate connection to nature and it creates a welcoming environment. Natural colors can also have a calming effect and when incorporated with natural patterns in a ceiling design can help diners feel like they’re dining under the stars or a canopy of trees.

10. Add the Warmth of Wood

The Warmth of Wood

As a natural material, wood not only brings sustainability to a space, it also has a soothing effect that can facilitate connection and relaxation. It offers the feeling of groundedness, and when paired with other natural materials, like brick, can create a beautiful space where diners feel at home.

11. Create Movement with Dimensional Waves

Movement with Dimensional Waves

Creating the feeling of movement and using materials that move with the breeze can have a simultaneously soothing and exciting effect. In this open dining space, the breeze can play through the ceiling panels, and because the panels are lower than the actual ceiling, it also creates an air of intimacy in a casual dining space.

12. Ensure a Cohesive Space

Cohesive Space

Because restaurants can be so large and open, the design may feel too big and lack a sense of intimacy that facilitates great conversation over dinner. Using ceiling panels throughout the entire space can ensure a sense of cohesion that brings everything, and everyone, together.

Design a Stunning Restaurant Ceiling with VIVA

The laser cut metal panels in our Decorative Ceiling Systems offer a practical and attractive solution for architectural spaces. They add visual interest and depth to a space and can make the design feel complete. Embracing the fifth wall of the ceiling and incorporating it into the design can create a cohesive feel throughout the space. We offer over 60 laser cut panels and more than 30 powder coating color options as well as the option to create a custom design to ensure that your space will wow your guests.

Contact the experts at VIVA today to see how our Decorative Ceiling Systems can complete your modern restaurant ceiling design!

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