For Andy Baraghani, design is something of a family affair. His husband, Keith Pollock, is a former AD editor and now a West Elm executive. But opening a restaurant was never part of the plan. In fact, when Michael Silber, a restaurant investor behind New York hot spots like Borgo, Penny, and Bistrot Ha, approached him with the idea of a laid-back restaurant open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Baraghani admits his first reaction was: “I have no interest.”
It wasn’t for lack of experience. He had started his career in restaurants—from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, where he worked as a teenager, to Estela in New York—before becoming a food editor at Bon Appetit and winning a James Beard Award for his cookbook, The Cook You Want to Be.
But he bonded with Silber over their shared love of greenmarket cooking and decorating deep dives. When it came to Ditto, he says, he wanted the space to convey his personal style. It helped that he and Silber were on the same page. “Andy and I talked about styles ranging from Bauhaus, de Stijl, and classic modernism to 1970s and ’80s aesthetics from places like Italy and France,” Silber says.
