The Tapas Room | Kevin Haley

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 brief was to grow without losing that intimacy: a bigger room that still feels like one room.

The bar as the statement

The answer is 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.

Deli by day, wine bar by night

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 is not on the receipt

Kevin Haley, Founder and Managing Director of Studio InPlace, said: "Atmosphere never appears on the receipt, yet it is the reason people come back. 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."

A neighbourhood of independents

The Tapas Room joins a growing mix of independents at New Acres, Legal & General's build-to-rent neighbourhood in Wandsworth, where the ground floor is given over to independent brands. Studio InPlace leads the placemaking and brand curation for the development as well as designing individual spaces within it, taking the ground floor from strategy through design to activation.

Design: Studio InPlace. Design team: Kevin Haley, Thomas Faulkner, Bella Baker, Ayushi Sen. Client: The Tapas Room. Landlord: Legal & General. Main contractor and joinery: Oloid Ltd. Photography: Simon Kennedy.