Beyond the WOW Effect | An Interview with Alex Rashkovskyi

We recently sat down with Petros® Stone for an in-depth conversation on hospitality design, materiality, and designing for business — from mapping the guest journey at BEERTEKA to why we still choose natural stone over imitation finishes. Below is a summary of that conversation, with the full interview available on the Petros® Stone website.

SUMMARY OF THE INTERVIEW

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Good hospitality design, Alex explains, starts with understanding the guest — who they are, why they've come, and what scenarios the space needs to hold — and translating that into zoning, seating, and circulation, while an equally important, mostly invisible operational journey (staff, deliveries, logistics) runs in parallel without friction.

At BEERTEKA, a working brewery restaurant on the third floor of a shopping center, that meant reconciling multiple guest entry points with brewing logistics and service routes. Boldness in design isn't always visually loud either: some of the most significant decisions, like relocating an entrance or adding mezzanines, are barely noticed by guests but are what make a project actually work — and trust with clients is built through experience and genuine intent, not novelty for its own sake.

Materiality runs through the whole conversation.

On RENÉ, rather than a literal chalet interior, the studio reinterpreted Alpine character in a contemporary language, choosing real wood and natural stone and marble over imitation finishes, because authenticity and how a material ages- sometimes gaining character, sometimes just looking tired — matter as much as first appearance.

That same logic shapes material choices generally: surfaces guests touch and sit near call for genuine stone, wood, and metal, while purely visual, low-contact surfaces can sometimes use high-quality porcelain or veneers. Natural stone in particular is chosen for matte, textured finishes over high polish, weighing color and veining against practical factors like slab availability, fabrication cost, and craftsmanship, treating stone as more than a finishing surface, but a material to be cut, aged, and textured deliberately.