In renovating the stunning Restaurante Teide, a staple in its neighbourhood in Valencia, Spain, design teams at Horma had one primary goal; they aimed to renew an old family tradition in order to give it a modern new feel that will help it last.
The Teide restaurant is the kind of family business that has been passed down from generation to generation. Throughout all that time, they never lost the sense of the core values they’ve always operated the business according to: well-being, proximity to the community, tradition, and quality. The only thing left that needed a little bit of rejuvenation was the pace itself.
As a result, design teams decided to try and develop a concept that feels more contemporary but also a little more timeless and fresh, without losing the elegance the restaurant has always maintained. Like many businesses in Spain, the restaurant features a cafe up front, but for many years the cafe space actually kind of masked the restaurant, which lies to the back. One of the biggest changes was that designers decided to bring a clear sense of the restaurant right up to the main entrance so it doesn’t get missed.
Even though designers wanted to bring the restaurant to the front of the visual space a little more, they still used colours, materials, and visuals to create some kind of separation of space and mood at the same time. The idea of was to make the two parts of the business communicate in a cohesive way while still provided a little bit of differentiation, since a cafe and a restaurant have very different moods.
In the restaurant space, which received a bit more of a transformation than the cafe, an emphasis was put on natural elements that might make the space feel comfortable and welcoming. This was achieved through the inclusion of stone flooring, and polished walnut furnishings. Teams added colour by setting everything against a backdrop of sea blue walls, helping to establish and elegant environment that’s a little more timeless than the previous look.
Within the update, designers aimed to tie the sense of local community into the look of the restaurant a little more. For that reason, they opted to source all of their stone and wood locally, feeding back into their local economy in a great way. These materials are evident all over, but particularly in the low separation wall that still provides some division between the cafe and restaurant spaces.
Outside, a series of locally styled luminaries provide a little light in the evenings for the patio area. There’s also a huge emphasis on vegetation and the inclusion of local greenery, creating a sense of tranquility and social calm. Because these plants are dotted throughout the cafe and restaurant spaces as well, a lovely atmosphere or harmony business-wide.
Photos by Mariela Apollonio
