Studio InPlace has completed The Tapas Room at New Acres in Wandsworth, a deli, bottle shop, tapas restaurant and wine bar in a single room.
It is the second site for founders Justin Wyatt-Smith and Jodie Houlihan, who built a loyal following from a small corner unit in Tooting’s Broadway Market.
The room circles a single piece of furniture. A long bar in stained solid oak and oak veneer, topped in brushed stainless steel, runs the length of the space. It pushes forward to make the bar, then pulls back to open up the restaurant floor. Its curves draw the eye in from the street and around the room, so the dining space is always held as a backdrop to whatever is happening at the counter.
Nothing is hidden. The kitchen is open, the bar station is open, and both sit behind the same crafted counter. Guests can watch a plate of jamón being sliced or a vermouth being poured from anywhere in the room. High stools, low tables and window counters set diners at different levels, creating pockets of closeness without a single partition. Above the bar, a suspended steel gantry carries bottles and glassware against the exposed services of the ceiling.
The room has to change pace through the day, and the floor does much of that work. Klompie brick laid in herringbone forms the entrance threshold and the deli, where a floor-to-ceiling wine wall in the same stained oak and a shared table set the daytime tone. Microcement takes over for the restaurant. Rather than meeting in a straight line, the two finishes interlock in a zigzag, brick by brick, a small, playful detail underfoot.
The rest of the palette is kept honest and warm: window tables in glazed red ceramic tile, white tiling to the foot of the bar, off-white walls, tan timber chairs and stainless steel stools. Nothing is precious: the theatre of tapas lives in the evidence of use.
“Atmosphere never appears on the receipt, yet it is the reason people come back,” said Kevin Haley, Founder and Managing Director of Studio InPlace.
“Every restaurant and shop is now competing with the same question: can I do this from my sofa? If the answer is yes, people stay home. Atmosphere is made twice, once by the operator in how they run the room, and once by the designer in the stage they are given. Justin and Jodie are already brilliant at the first. Our job was the second, and at The Tapas Room the bar is that stage. You cannot get this from a sofa.”
Justin Wyatt-Smith and Jodie Houlihan, founders of The Tapas Room, said: “With our second site, we wanted to build on what people already love about The Tapas Room while creating a space where everything is on show and our guests feel part of the action. We want everyone who walks through the door to feel genuinely welcomed, arriving as guests and leaving feeling like friends.”
