Project: Bisushima Restaurant
Architecture: Ben Adams Architects
Project team: Ben Adams, Mark Conroy, Bethany Houlihan
Client: Amaberry
Location: Charing Cross, London
Area: 6,000 sqf
Budget: £1.2m
Text and photos: Courtesy of Ben Adams Architects
A modern restaurant located at the top of Page8 Hotel overlooking Trafalgar Square.
Bisushima Restaurant is a new signature modern Japanese restaurant located at the top of the Page8 hotel near Trafalgar Square. The 6,000 sqf restaurant features two extensive roof terraces, offering outdoor dining and spectacular views of London’s iconic skyline, Covent Garden, and Trafalgar Square.
Restaurateur, Sergey Men, who also owns the World’s End Market on the King’s Road, has developed the 190-cover dining concept. Located on the hotel’s sixth floor, the restaurant will also provide F&B services for hotel guests and will include a Japanese breakfast for room service.
Following our work at Nobu, Ben Adams Architects collaborated with the restaurant’s brand agency to develop a design rooted in pared-back Japanese minimalism and which would create a harmonious relationship between food, guests, and environment. Without straying into pastiche, a number of Japanese-inspired elements are featured in the interior including a mural in blue and gold, which references traditional Japanese landscape art and highlights the subtle transition from day to night.
A restrained interiors palette includes pale grey leather dining booths, concrete floors, the warm wooden accents of European Oak used throughout, and lots of natural daylight. A coffered ceiling with an integrated bespoke lighting concept helps create a more intimate ambience and references the Japanese mending technique of Kintsugi, or ‘golden repair’.
By day the restaurant offers a calm and tranquil environment but after dark changes to showcase the drama of Japanese cookery. A large open grill and counter highlight the preparation and presentation skills of the chefs at work.
As well as the top floor restaurant, an additional speakeasy bar at ground floor, adjacent the car park, offers a cool and accessible drinking experience. Conceived as a flexible space for private events or VIP launches, the bar creates an extension of the brand and helps draw visitors into the hotel and restaurant.
