Image Credit : Franklin & Franklin/ Gareth Gardner
Project Overview
Launched in November 2017, BABA is the new destination restaurant and bar within The Principal Edinburgh Charlotte Square, masterminded by the culinary team behind hit Glasgow restaurant, Ox and Finch and offering a boldly unconventional menu of small plate mezze dining with the unique flavour of ‘Levantine escapism’. Goddard Littlefair worked with PRINCIPAL and the operating team to develop a contemporary, Levantine-inspired design scheme to fit with the Middle Eastern culinary concept.
The bar and restaurant feature a vibrant colour scheme and an industrial, distressed design feel, with strong elements of the Levantine in terms of colours and detailing. With its own street entrance, signalling the unique space within, BABA is a bold and contemporary addition to the hotel’s food and beverage offering.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Principal Hotel Company (Client)
Goddard Littlefair (Interior Designer)
3DReid (Architect)
Project Brief
BABA was created as part of the transformation of The Principal Edinburgh Charlotte Square hotel, with the brief to create a new destination bar and restaurant with its own unique identity, whilst still maintaining a light-touch link to the hotel’s Georgian heritage.
Key to the concept was creating an aesthetic that captured the sense of spontaneity, rather than being overly ‘designed’ or considered. Innovative techniques were used to create a pre-established and distressed feel, for example specialist paint finishes applied to the walls to evoke the passing of time and hint at the building’s age, as well as a deep red chequerboard pattern, stencilled onto the floorboards, which will wear with time and contribute to the scheme’s feel of worn authenticity.
Goddard Littlefair was asked to provide a step change in terms of the look and feel of these spaces and this change in approach is immediately apparent. The flavour of the Levantine infuses everything from the personality and the design of the restaurant, to the food and cocktails on offer. The result is vibrant and edgy, combining a richly coloured palette of tactile, high-quality fabrics and varied furniture, all set against a canvas of classic Georgian architecture.
Project Innovation/Need
Designed to appeal to both hotel guests as well as Edinburgh locals, BABA is a bold and contemporary addition to the hotel’s food and beverage offering. The project is a prime example of the resurgence of the hotel restaurant, explained by Jo Littlefair to Hotel Designs. “For a very long time, there was a huge drift away by customers from hotel restaurants, forcing hotels to up their game substantially”. This design has outed “bland dining rooms” and she insists: “standalone restaurants are beginning to look jealously at the suite of experiences a hotel can offer fine-dining customers, from a pre-dinner cocktail to a late night lounge coffee – all in a single location”.
For the operator, flexibility of the seating layout was key and as a result, an increased number of covers can now be accommodated, from the adjustable banquettes and booths to freestanding tables, as well as a semi- private dining area. Arrangement of the space allows for quick re-configuration to accommodate different sized parties, whilst a series of semi-private lounge areas provide a transition space to the hotel.
Design Challenge
A key challenge was creating a unique Levantine-inspired interior within the fabric of the building’s original listed architecture. To ensure these spaces linked well to the rest of the hotel, a number of period elements were incorporated that paid respect to the building, such as Georgian-era tiling designs, as well as architectural salvage elements that link to other key spaces in the hotel. To allude to the Levantine-inspired food offer, Middle Eastern rugs are hung on the walls like tapestry artworks and a rich colour scheme is used throughout, including deep reds, teals and aubergine.
To create a strong and unique personality for the bar space, the idea of a fictitious owner ‘Mr Baba’, based on a vintage photograph found in a Turkish Souk, was created and provided visual inspiration for the scheme. A specially-commissioned mural of 'Mr Baba', provides a striking backdrop to the bar counter and elements of this image re-occur, creating a unique narrative that builds throughout the restaurant’s dining spaces. The bar also features its own street entrance, signalling the unique identity of the space within.
Sustainability
Resourceful upcycling is used throughout the scheme, reducing the need for newly manufactured materials.
From the reclaimed cinema seating in the bar area hung by scaffolding poles to the re-finished timber bar top, our designers found innovative ways to incorporate reusable items into the scheme. Within the central dining area, a row of banquettes was framed by decorative panels made from reclaimed timber flooring from the hotel’s bedrooms. These moveable divider screens accommodate variable group seating, with screen sliders made from hardware originally created for barn doors.
Interior Design - Hospitality
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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