Crave came to us with a vacant 2,200 sqm shell on a busy Nyali corner and three programmes that had to coexist — a destination restaurant, an espresso-bar café for the morning trade, and a pâtisserie display that doubles as the till.
The owner wanted something rooted on the coast, but unmistakably itself — not the standard hospitality kit of timber slats, edison bulbs, and chalkboards.
We threw the conventional partition plan out and modelled the interior as a single biomorphic volume — hand-tooled plaster ceilings and walls forming arches, niches and apertures that organize seating naturally without enclosing it.
Three signature counters — bakery, café and bar — anchor the plan in fish-scale emerald glaze and aged brass. Encaustic tile rugs mark zones underfoot where walls don't.
The main lounge is built around a single canopy of ficus, planted into a banquette and lit by recessed warm coves. The wall behind is sculpted plaster — a continuous bas-relief that turns the seating into an alcove without a partition.
Bakery, pâtisserie and espresso bar share a single curving counter wrapped in handmade fish-scale tile and finished with a brass kick. The pastry display reads as architecture, not retail — and the line forms naturally around the curve.
Along the dining hall a single sculpted plaster wall rolls and lifts behind the banquettes — the only ornament needed. Up-lighting reads the relief; the rest of the room stays quiet so the food can speak.
A small room treated as a jewellery box — emerald arabesque tile on three walls, marble penny mosaic on the fourth, brass everywhere. Most guests photograph it. We didn't put it on Instagram so they would.
The long elevation faces the road. Rather than block it out, we used it — a continuous bar-height counter pulls daylight through the room and gives solo guests a place that doesn't feel solo.
They drew it, they built it, they styled it on opening day. We turned up to a finished room. We'd hire them again tomorrow.