Award-winning design studio, B3 Designers, have created the brand identity and interiors of Sackville’s, a new London restaurant located in the heart of Mayfair, which opened 16 July. Their brief was to create a sophisticated, destinational, ‘Tailored Meats and Spirits’ restaurant in a former tailor’s address in Sackville Street. The 135 square feet, 56 covers restaurant consists of two floors, each floor with it own distinctive style inspired by the former tailors’ identity.
Evoked through tailoring activity
Sackville’s brand identity is drawn from the sleek, sophisticated and understated luxury evoked through tailoring activity back in the 1960’s. The menu’s key ingredient is the truffle – the rarity of this product and its black colour combined with tailoring aesthetics form the core of the brand identity. The black tones of the truffle are depicted in the calligraphy on the slightly textured, off white paper menus, reminiscent of tailors’ paper.
As the building was historically a tailor’s shop and workspace, B3 Designers used these two facets of the tailor identity to form a consistent design language throughout the space. The ground floor has a sleek, sophisticated style with stripped back walls, exposing the existing brick work and rough render, combined with contemporary dining chairs in deep brown leather. These design elements personify what was once the Carr Woor and Sons tailors’ elegant showroom. The basement has a contrasting utilitarian feel, symbolic of the ‘workroom’ where Hicks & Sons would do all their cutting.
Dark grey woodwork and existing sandstone façade on the exterior create a moody and mysterious shop front. Discrete signage and visitors only recognizing the address by the door, ‘No. 8a’, evoke a speakeasy look and feel to the restaurant upon arrival. The sense of ‘conceal and reveal’ is introduced by this secluded exterior.
Truffle influences
References to truffles are not only in the menu and its ingredients but also in the colour of the seating banquettes – the moss green leather and walnut frame of the linear banquettes on the ground floor represents the natural landscape where truffles are hunted.
A sense of manmade industrial elegance is added to the ground floor space with the brass trimmed wall mirrors, French oak parquet flooring and grigio orobrico marble table tops, combined with mid-century inspired dining chairs. The theatre kitchen at the far end of the ground floor adds to the enigmatic design elements – dark and secluded, it harbors four dining seats at the dining counter.
The mysterious design continues downstairs to the basement with a glass screen with a blackened steel frame and reeded glass and timber infills. The basement seating banquettes are covered in aged leather with a more solid feel compared to the intricate ones on the ground floor. The banquettes are surrounded by walls adorned with sheets of brown paper, again making reference to the tailors’ workspace.