Taniya Nayak, The Designer
I’m from India, and my mom cooked Indian food every single night of the week. It was usually a vegetable, a rice, a lentil—we didn’t eat a whole lot of meat growing up, which is ironic since I design steakhouses now.
Taniya Nayak ’97 says trying a new restaurant is like going on a first date.
“You want to be attracted to the person, and you hope they have substance,” she says. “And when you walk into a restaurant, it has to have a little of everything, but there can also be some give-and-take. If the food is stellar, you’ll be more forgiving of the design. Or, if the service is outstanding and the design is over the top, but the food is just so-so, you’d go back again.”
As an A-list interior designer well-known for her work with Ellen DeGeneres, Rachel Ray, HGTV and Food Network’s “Restaurant: Impossible,” Nayak knows of what she speaks. Working with her husband, restaurateur Brian O’Donnell, Nayak has helped develop eight eateries in the Boston area over the past decade, most recently the Yellow Door Taqueria in Dorchester.
She’s currently sinking her teeth into her most ambitious project yet: renovating Ruth’s Chris Steak Houses all over the country. Nayak has been friends with the president and chief operating officer of the upscale steakhouse chain, Cheryl Henry ’96, since their UML days, when they were neighbors in Fox Hall and both studying marketing in the Manning School of Business.
“Cheryl read a story in the alumni magazine about me doing ‘Restaurant: Impossible’ and asked if I’d be interested in working with them on a big brand refresh and expansion,” says Nayak.
Nayak also takes on high-end residential projects for clients such as Bruins star Patrice Bergeron, Bruins president Cam Neely and former Red Sox star Jason Varitek. She also emcees Taste of the Nation, an annual Boston summer fundraiser that raises
awareness about child hunger.
“I can’t even tell you how giddy I get about it,” says Nayak. “I am starstruck by our Boston chefs. I’m a geek around them.”—EB