Ancho Mexican Grill II
Street-food Restaurant
Interior Design
PROJECT DETAILS
project: transformation of existing facility to a restaurant
location: Kifissia, Athens, Greece
floor area: 250 m2
status: built
year: 2016
design .
construction: km architecture studio
artwork: A. Glykas, Z. Nikolopoulou
graphic design: teokon design
photos: studio Kominis
press: KATASKEVES KTIRION
This street-food restaurant is located in a two-storey building with an inner courtyard.
Three years after Ancho Mexican Grill I, the challenge in designing this store lay in avoiding delivering an identical with the first one restaurant, along with developing the initial concept into something new and fresh. Apart from the restaurant itself, the program here includes a kids-playground and a private venue for special events.
Based on the same approach and design principles (geometrically simple space, separation in two areas, clear identity), the street-food concept area is placed on the open-plan ground level (open kitchen, self-service area), while the restaurant-lounge area is set at an elevated position created as a private patio.
The concept was to keep characteristic elements and materials of the initial design (stucco cement flooring, cement tiles, ceramic lights, printed panel, neon sign) and ideally adapt them to a new design (flooring construction is a composition of timber or stucco cement combined sparsely with cement tiles).
Grey-shade walls complement here warm and elegant coloured surfaces, while balancing with a palette of vibrant colours (coloured furniture and panels, colourful tiles). Along with that, decoration involves targeted to mexican culture design elements (wooden symbols).
In the courtyard, perceived as a Mexican garden (planted with cacti), wall-art designs cover the surrounding surfaces.
The special events venue and kids-playground are placed on the first floor. The solution adopted for these subsidiary functions corresponds to the main design concept. Colourful elements (carpet) and warm materials (wooden toy-installations) dominate in playground, while the perforated partition depicts the space’s joyful sense. Avoiding the casual appearance but not neglecting the store’s identity, the venue is created as an exclusive, formal space easily transformed to host diverse events.