The configuration of the restaurant was conceptualised as a theatre...

The kitchen pass as a stage ablaze with action, a long chef’s table as front row, the ubiquitous fours forming the stalls, flanked either side by the more intimate gallery and conservatory- a robust backstage experience leads to the bejeweled dressing rooms below the dining room.

Our project at Café Hanoi relies on the ‘humble-special’ nature of a raw/cooked dialectic, in order to deliver a richness of space from a modest budget deployed amidst real dilapidation. The furniture illustrates this approach: sourced from second-hand shops, the mismatched forms of the chairs are unified by a single blood-red palette.

The chairs were cheap, but we took five weeks and a dozen samples to get the red right. Similarly, the simple oak tabletops are not encased in polyurethane, but shellacked and hand-oiled to develop richness, depth and tactility in the timber.