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restaurants & bars project report
‘Inspiration was taken from the name of an 1870s Soho restaurant which had been run by two Italian brothers’
professionals but also a construction team, so there’s no delay in implementing design ideas. “We have a certain way of working,” explains the design
director. “We work alongside them, right next door to them. There is a lot of back and forth. All this means that it would take a long time for an external design company to get their heads around it.” He adds: “There is not a huge amount of time to have things signed off ”. Such time constraints are a result of Soho House & Co’s fre-
netic recent activity: Waterworth reckons about 20 other proj- ects are currently underway, but there’s a reason why Cafe Monico, sitting cosily in the heart of the West End, is special. “It’s the first stand-alone brand we have created in a while,” he says.
Soho heritage
After setting up the Soho House brand, soon the darling of the global metropolitan smart set, the company founder wanted to create a classic European brasserie. Founded in London in 1995 as a private members’ club for people in the creative industries, Soho House & Co has since opened clubs across
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Europe and North America, as well as restaurants, cinemas, workspaces, spas and bedrooms. Cafe Monico is the group’s latest venture. When the designer tells you the former occupant of
the property was another club, you automatically think ‘fine dining,’ but that’s surprisingly far from the truth. “It was a proper dance club,” Waterworth says. “It was pretty
grimy.” So the place needed a narrative to give it character and integrity. “We wanted to make the place feel like it had been there for 70 years,” explains the designer. Inspiration was taken from the name of an 1870s restaurant
which had been run by two Italian brothers. Soho House researched the menu of the old place and discovered the brothers used recipes sourced from across the continent. The now-defunct brasserie also catered for theatre goers. To broaden the search, the team looked at European
examples from the same era, focusing on Paris, Vienna and Milan, and was inspired by art deco references. This type of hard modernism is classy, but not always that cosy. To soften
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