FÜM by Arcturis | Square Feet Studio is a contemporary Italian restaurant at Stella at Star Metals in Atlanta, USA, with interior design led by Arcturis | Square Feet Studio in collaboration with Grant Blakeslee of Hand Studio, who provided concept through schematic design. The restaurant is operated by Grassfed Culture Hospitality. Named after the Italo-Gaelic word for smoke, FÜM is anchored by an open wood-fired hearth, its design channeling the hand of a sculptor to carve solids and voids into soft curves, with bone-like plaster soffits and columns overhead. A restrained palette of natural tones is accented by moments of paprika red and pistachio green, colors rooted in the ingredients themselves. Alongside the open kitchen, a pasta-making room, dry-aging chamber, wine area, bespoke cocktail bar, and DJ booth invite guests to experience the craft behind every plate, honoring process as the heart of hospitality.
The restaurant is warm, layered, and alive, a space where craft is honored and guests can gather, slow down, and be nourished in more ways than one. It occupies over 5,000 square feet on the ground floor of Stella, a 20-story residential tower that was well under construction when the restaurant's design began, requiring close coordination with the authority having jurisdiction to resolve the demands of a solid-fuel kitchen, including two independent exhaust systems routed through the ceiling and garage structure to discharge away from residential balconies.
The material palette is restrained: a limewash finish in Benjamin Moore's "Spring in Aspen" applied to sculptural bone-like walls and soffits; paprika red introduced at ceiling insets and along the back kitchen wall; pistachio green Perennials fabric on bespoke banquettes; rich walnut for tables and millwork; and stainless steel throughout the open kitchen. At the entrance, a curved bar and host stand are clad in Ceppo Rosso marble, quarried in Portugal and often referred to as "nature's terrazzo." All furniture and seating were custom fabricated in Croatia by Mobello; the open hearth and show kitchen by Atlanta-based Grills by Demant; custom lighting and framed openings by local metalwork studio Mill & Forge; the limewash plaster finish by Harper House; and the bar system, which puts cocktail preparation at eye level, by Behind Bars in Oslo.
The design treats the restaurant not as a backdrop for dining, but as a living organism that makes its own processes of making visible and central to the guest experience. Inspired by Italian piazzas, where locals move through a sequence of craft and exchange, the spatial journey unfolds through a coffee bar at entry, connected directly to the building's lobby, a wine program woven through the central nave, a sculptural pasta room, a glowing dry-aging chamber, and the open hearth anchoring the dining room, with guests encouraged to wander throughout the meal. The sculptural plaster forms, rooted in the conceptual direction of bone, tissue, and osso, emerged from a rigorous parametric process; they conceal structure and mechanical systems, organize circulation, and compress and release space in direct response to the existing architecture, expressive without being arbitrary. Behind Bars' Tayēr bar system likewise foregrounds craft and process, with service functions discreetly integrated within carved voids of the sculptural columns, dissolving the boundary between back of house and front of house.
FÜM is fundamentally rooted in community, both the craftspeople who built it and the guests it serves. The collaboration between Grassfed Culture Hospitality, Hand Studio, and Arcturis | Square Feet Studio prioritized inclusive design by engaging local artisans to ensure a deeply connected, accessible, and welcoming space. Executive Chef Sebastián Vargas, working under Grassfed Culture Hospitality's Co-Founder and Creative Director Pili Restrepo Hackler, sources ingredients within a 300-mile radius using seasonal, sustainable farming practices that have earned MICHELIN Green Stars at sister concepts, and key architectural elements were fabricated nearby to minimize transportation-related carbon. The architectural intervention worked within the existing structural shell to minimize waste, making minimal interventions to sculpturally cap the existing structure and mezzanine above. The material palette prioritizes durability and longevity: Perennials fabric was chosen for its performance in high-use hospitality settings, while natural plaster finishes and solid walnut millwork offer lasting quality.
