Red Deer: Ochre, The National Gallery
Architecture and design studio Red Deer designed the National Gallery’s latest restaurant, Ochre, inspired by the very structure of the paintings that adorn the gallery’s walls.
The restaurant’s design takes cues from ochre, a pigment found in rocks and soil. The palette for the interior echoes this, using beautiful earthy hues, including burnt orange, yellows, and browns. The colour palette is applied throughout the interior, in the design’s materials and textiles ranging from deep luxurious velvets, boucles and embroidered fabrics to raw cotton and linens. Adding hand-patinated brass as a repeated detail further adds to this painterly palette. At the same time, the handmade ceramic tables by ceramicist Emma Lloyd-Pane recall large ochre paint splashes.
Located on the ground floor of The National Gallery, the restaurant retains many of the building’s original features from its classical architecture, including high ceilings and large windows. The inclusion of contemporary banquette seating that zig zags across the centre of the main space serve to separate the drinking and dining areas. They were designed and purpose-built by Red Deer to mimic that of a paint stroke playfully. This focal point pays homage to the history of the building and to the act of painting itself. The wooden bar stools continue this artistic theme with the bases shaped in the form of painters’ palettes.
Lighting plays an integral part in the space, designed to create an atmospheric ambience as if guests themself are seated within a still life painting. The listed status of the structure did provide challenges and limitations with the studio finding creative solutions such as bespoke, free-standing lighting to create intimate spaces while not interfering with and obstructing the original fabric and architectural details of the building.
Photography: Gro Studio London Ltd
Red Deer co-founder and lead architect and designer, Lucas Che Tizard, oversaw the project and was the inspiration behind the colour palette found within so much of the National Gallery’s collection that houses over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.
As Tizard explains, ‘When we were imagining the design for Ochre, it was always going to be a plush space because the building itself is so beautiful and its proportions are so iconic. It just lends itself to these grand indulgent fittings. We imagined this restaurant space to be like an artist’s home - warm, homely and relaxing, and I think the design of Ochre definitely reflects this. Likewise, the name, Ochre, and the colour palette it is named after are muted and autumnal, and so the food served here is simple and seasonal. We worked closely at every stage of the design with Sam and Charlotte Miller, who have created Ochre, so that the design and the menu work side by side and complement one another. It is an understated but no less playful result.’