The Inspiration Behind Morin’s Design

When the Morin team took over the legendary Wazee Supper Club in LoDo last year, it faced a challenge: transforming a restaurant with 44 years of pizza-and-beer history in its bones into a chic yet relaxed setting for Max Mackissock and Blake Edmunds’ modern French fare. Enter Denver design firm Raw Creative (also behind Mackissock and Edmunds’ Señor Bear in LoHi). Raw left the building’s original brick walls and stained-glass windows intact, as well as the low-ceilinged balcony and old-school dumbwaiter. But for a more contemporary vibe, the firm installed sumptuous blond leather booths and designed an ovular 22-seat walnut bar in the center of the dining room. It’s a lovely spot for slurping oysters while you watch Morin’s bartenders craft the restaurant’s smooth signature martini, made with Monkey 47 gin, Grey Goose vodka, fino sherry, and citrus. The massive sculpture hanging above the bar—an inverted representation of Mont Blanc in the French Alps—may be a departure from the televisions that graced that place of honor during the Supper Club’s tenure, but so too are the exquisite look, feel, and flavors of au courant Morin.