Premier Hospitality

One Hundred Islington

One Hundred Islington
Written by Roma Publications

One Hundred Islington

One Hundred Islington

One Hundred Islington is an exciting new restaurant that has come to London, featuring a striking design and offering a simple food concept drawing mainly from Asian and Middle-Eastern flavours, spices and ingredients.

Award-winning architectural studio Y A O has designed the 140-cover restaurant, creating an effortlessly attractive space. Eye-catching and extravagant, the venue displays an innovative floating balloon-like structure.

Based in East London, Y A O comprises a team of architects, artists and designers. The studio was established by Mr Yaojen Chuang in 2014, who exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, and was a former architect at Heatherwick studio and Tom Dixon. The studio aims to make unique projects happen through the marriage between art and architecture.

Yaojen Chuang, Managing Director at Y A O Architects, told Premier Hospitality:

“We divided the restaurant into three parts: a cocktail bar which features a floating hanging structure, completed with pillowed glowing cladding panels, which bulge outward as if lightly inflated; a booth seating area which features custom designed velvet sofas, adorned with large, full height bespoke brass mirrors that reflect the bar, and specially commissioned artworks; and a dining room which features a long, tailor-made table with a bespoke artwork piece spanning the entire length of the table.

“The three spaces are unified by the deep blue walls and raw steel flooring covering the full extent of the restaurant.”

One Hundred Islington is the studio’s second commission by the 100 Hoxton restaurant group, and the brief was simple – to reconfigure the existing layout and to provide a refreshing, memorable interior that follows the design ethos of the original 100 Hoxton restaurant. The restaurant is situated on Upper Street, in the London borough of Islington.

A laid back atmosphere allows for guests to relax and socialise, and the guiding vision for the design was to apply a new utilitarian, minimalistic approach inspired by the 1920’s Bauhaus movement. Combining creativity and craftsmanship, the space was stripped back of all previous decorative materials, wallpapers and found objects, with an emphasis placed on rethinking the space holistically and analysing the operational needs of the restaurant.

The majority of the furniture, fixtures and fittings have been custom designed by the studio and carefully curated based on the functionality, practicality and compatibility of each piece.

Y A O worked in collaboration with Spanish artist Alberto Torres Hernandez, securing two bespoke artworks commissioned for the restaurant. Entitled “Time to Wait”, the diptych features two mixed media, figurative paintings depicting a moment of contemplation in a slightly varying state, embellished with overlaying bright colours. The soft, gentle curves of the body and the movement suggested by the figures juxtapose the otherwise heavy and industrial surroundings.

Tables, stools, sofas, brass mirrors, the bar and the back bar structure were designed specifically for the restaurant, and custom-built by UK based makers and fabricators.

Yaojen added:

“We worked closely with the fabricators on the design, detailing, joinery and the finishing of each element. The pillowing translucent cladding panels were made by a special manufacturing process of low pressure blow forming, cut to size and inserted into the hanging structure, transforming the shelving unit into a floating lantern above the bar.

“Also, we designed bespoke table artworks for the bar and dining tables. The artworks are formed of fundamental geometries and reduced colour palettes, presented in a semi-asymmetrical order, advocating pure abstraction as well as reflecting functionalism and expressionism of the early 20th century art.”

A pan-Asian menu is on offer at One Hundred Islington, similar to that at 100 Hoxton, led by Head Chef Francis Puyat. The Islington restaurant menu features sharing plates and individual dishes, such as Courgette and Halloumi fritter with preserved lemon yoghurt; Singapore soft shell chilli crab, peanut and lime; and chilli fried rice with chilli prawn sambal, fried egg and Chinese sausage.

For more information and reservations, please visit: www.100restaurants.co.uk.

 

 

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