CLAW Carnaby, on Kingly Street, was right next door to Dishoom. A two-storey urban seafood restaurant, with a bar and busy dining space on the main ground floor, and more cozy seating and Private Dining in the basement. Designed by us.

Having started life in a shipping container, we were then commissioned to design CLAW’s first bricks and mortar venue. CLAW’s investor had an architect firm he was used to using (Inside Out), but decided after seeing our work that he’d like to use us both. So we were very successfully partnered with the architects, who were tasked with being the lead on delivering the project. Whilst we were commissioned to act as the creative lead on the front-end design concept for CLAW. So we set about devising the overall look and feel decorative scheme, developing the materials and finishes palette and sourcing and procuring all furniture, lighting, styling and accessories. Our core palette used gloss tiles and paint to fuse and contrast against natural stone, brick and concrete for a sea and sand feel.

Our design concept subtly fuses contemporary references to man’s love affair with the sea, combining knocked back, refined rawness with a sophisticated urban backdrop of concrete, mild steel and brick, layering grainy, textured and glossy materials on walls and floors to zone the space between a feel of shoreline to under the sea. With plans for us to design some unique marine inspired etchings in concrete. We love our sub-aqua colour palette, with pops of teal and sea spray blue green. Our FF&E styling choices are honest and unfussy, with live edges curves playing against architectural angles. Our decorative lighting makes a cool statement, but most importantly creates a lovely low-light atmosphere. We love the bespoke suspended globe light feature in the shop front window, the projecting ironwork table pendants and ground floor corrugated walls.

The mesh clad, rustic metal staircase descends to the basement, framed by a soft, burned umber and coral ombre effect softly graduating down the wall. A lovely decorative detail and one of the must-have keepers from our original concept which made the final cut: shades of the sea, surf and the setting sun, unisex and universally appealing.‍

The pièce de résistance in our finished design is the etched concrete wall mural in the basement, designed by our in-house graphics team and hand-created on site by one of our skilled set-design-makers. A giant squidish fossil as if unearthed from the ground beneath Kingly Street. Finished delicately with antique bronze. A truly original one-off.