Differentiating designs with unpredictability, cultural combinations

THE first thing that strikes you about Uma Nota Manila, the Brazilian-Japanese restaurant that opened a few months ago at the Shangri-La The Fort, Manila is the sense of privacy that it provides its guests.

The discreet entrance and exit doors are apart from each other; guests can quietly enter one way and leave another, without heralding their presence and departure, or disturbing the other people by inadvertently ushering the outside noise in through a restaurant's traditional wide doors.