Hide
Client and Restaurateur: Tatiana Fokina and Evgeny Chichvarkin
Location: Mayfair, London
Size: 1375 sqm.
CASE STUDY DOWNLOAD
Hide is a dramatic three-level restaurant and bar situated in Mayfair opposite Green Park. Our client, Hedonism Wines had an ambition to create ‘a restaurant like no other’ to be one of the best dining experiences in London, combining food by Michelin star chef, Ollie Dabbous, a world class wine list and a complimentary, magical interior evoking a sense of wonder and discovery.
The restaurant is set in a brutalist concrete box, we opened this up to create large glass windows looking into a fairytale world within, set in heavy textured bronze picture frames. Despite all the glass, much of Hide is hidden from the street either by reflection, elevated above or submerged below, games played with degrees of transparency.
We have remodelled the existing interior space more than meets the eye to create 3 interconnected levels, carving a large void into the mezzanine slab creating a dramatic double height space which forms the heart of the restaurant. The main circulatory staircase was moved from the periphery to both open out the glazed facades and create a central vortex of movement connecting the three floors, which have been named Above, Ground and Below. The new staircase grows and emerges tree like from the shadows below where it intimately wraps around and blends with the bar.
The restaurant space Above is an elegant, more formal, panelled dining room, a gallery space both overlooking the internal atrium and externally over fabulous views of Green Park. Parts can be closed off to form private dining rooms with a secret entrance from the car park above.
The atmosphere of Below is one of shadows and the earth, the aged and imperfection. Working with lighting designers, Spiers and Major, an eternal twilight, subterranean world has been created; playing with varying degrees of light and shadow.
The interior feels both intimate and yet part of a larger experience as a silent movie of urban movement plays out in the street, seen but not heard. Many hundreds of hands have made this a very special place, a place with soul in the heart of London.
To experience, visit Hide website.
Chef Ollie Dabbous. Lighting Design Speirs + Major. Kitchen Design Humble Arnold Associates. Structural Engineer Heyne Tillet Steel. Project Manager Fraser Randall. Planning Consultant Turley. Licensing Lawyer Thomas & Thomas. Joinery Scena. Specialist Joinery Craig Narramore
