barchetta

Every few years most restaurants will require a little reinvention to tempt patron enthusiasm. Barchetta was well established as food and beverage venue on the Cottesloe beachfront, but was probably considered more of a café than a restaurant by the local community. So part of the reinvention brief was to promote alcohol sales and help establish its position as a restaurant.

The design resolution here was to up-lift the restaurant’s entry / service counter area, whilst strengthening the delineation and intimacy of the adjacent dining zone. Feature Shell pendant lights was installed over the service counter and new cabinetwork elevated liquor onto the back wall in customer’s eye sight. A large wine storage partition was installed as the centre piece of the restaurant.

The design of the translucent Shell pendant light is an abstraction of a conical shell commonly found along the beach just metres away from the restaurant.

As many would know, barchetta means little boat in Italian, which was the inspiration for the wine storage design as a memorable branding motif. It was formed with E0 marine-plywood and low VOC clear finish. As the early morning sunrays come through the eastern window of the dining area they catch the edges of the barchetta, now proudly docked in the heart of the restaurant.