Canal Is the New Westbourne Park Eatery Pairing Brutalism and Warmth
If chrome is all you’re seeing on Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok, as well as in real life, just know it’s not the algorithm playing tricks on you. Since the timeless, sheeny finish has been named the trendiest, most influential surface of the year, it has been springing up anywhere within the interior design space, whether incorporated into the home in the form of paperback accessories and collectibles with a futuristic edge or used as a cinematic trick to infuse character into entire walls.
Unsurprisingly, the metallic look is quickly gaining traction inside some of the best London restaurants, too, finding one of its latest and most expressive manifestations in Canal, a recent opening by the HAM Restaurants group.
Inaugurated last month inside Mason & Fifth’s Westbourne Park hotel complex — a sprawling, design-driven property comprising 332 self-contained suites, a multifunctional wellness and fitness area, and more communal spaces, including a cinema room, a listening lounge, and a recording studio — the modern Mediterranean restaurant, headed by the New Yorker Adrian Hernandez Farina, was dreamed up by the team behind hip London hotspots Crispin and Bistro Freddie in collaboration with interior and furniture design studio A-nrd.
At Westbourne Park’s restaurant Canal, Brutalist interiors are brought to life by a convivial setting exuding sophistication and warmth.
(Image credit: Adam Firman. Design: A-nrd)
What was once the London Taxi Drivers’ Association headquarters has been turned into a 280-square-meter eatery that pays homage to its industrial past while simultaneously keeping people at its heart.
Featuring a minimalist, yet tastefully furnished terrace over the Grand Union Canal, the establishment makes it easy for diners to connect over its inventive drinks selection and seasonal comfort food offering without ever having to step away from the sun. Current highlights include a Brown Butter Old Fashioned and Manhattan Oil Negroni, though sustainably produced wine, beer, and spirit-free cocktails are also available for less adventurous-minded guests, and melt-in-your-mouth crab doughnuts, crisp-topped beef tartare, and Italian-inspired pasta dishes in the culinary realm.
But the possibility of dining outdoors in London isn’t the only thing that makes this Westbourne Park newcomer worthwhile. Every aspect of Canal’s interior has been carefully curated to facilitate sociability, comfort, and fun.
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Silvery surfaces might well be booming in London’s restaurant design scene, but simply jumping on a trend is one thing — finding a way to integrate them seamlessly into a space without compromising your signature creative vision is a whole different one. Stopping by for a meal at Fonda, another project recently completed by A-nrd’s founder, Alessio Nardi, was enough for me to understand that no stylistic choice is ever exclusively about the looks for the designer. Instead, as he told me on that occasion, “it’s about character and story.”
From the moment people step inside the new gastronomic destination of Mason & Fifth’s Westbourne Park guesthouse, they are immediately absorbed in a play of subtle contrasts, one unfolding as a dialogue between the indoor and the outside.
For starters, multiple zinc-clad, chrome elements — from the matte, paneled walls of the dramatic, centrally located island bar, envisioned as the eatery’s social hub, and the visibly battered, metallic slabs alternating with the bespoke wine shelving’s warm Sapele timber wood, to the occasional matching tables interspersed with the hand-chiseled detailing of the Nardi-designed, upholstered banquettes, created by Or This’ founding maker, Jason Posnot, and the reflective exposed conduits and ductwork — have been inserted not just to reference, but also amplify, the continuous movement and variations of water and light.
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The honeycomb-hued, organic woods and fuzziness of the fabric implemented throughout gently counter the harshness of the location’s rough cement walls. Straight-lined furnishings find their place within an intricate puzzle of geometric architectural volumes, round-edged, colossal pillars, and ventilation pipes-lined ceilings. While the negative space that separates the bar counter and the communal seating area from either side of the dining room elegantly molds the restaurant into shape.
Commonly criticized as overly cold and even alien-like, Brutalist interiors like those of Canal might appear impersonal at first sight. Yet, it is the tactile, inherently human details scattered across the place, whether it be the crisp, washi-style pendant lights hovering over the heads of diners above the banquettes — folklore-inspired creations by local studio Findere — the textured glass frieze framing the open kitchen, or the plump, amusing doughnut sconces sourced for the eatery from Foscarini, that will keep visitors coming back.
Book your table at Canal.
Get the Canal Look
Holloways of Ludlow
Circus Wall/Ceiling Light
The A-nrd-designed London eatery comes alive thanks to this playful, doughnut-shaped sconces. Ps. they are on sale! Not into the white one? Check out this orange RXPVUXE design via Amazon instead.
FRAMA
Chair 01 | Dark Brown Birch
Westbourne Park’s Canal features this sturdy, essential FRAMA chairs in its dining room. They are timeless, versatile, and resistant, and I am totally obsessed.
Natalia Criado
Silver-Plated and Stone Candleholder
Not in London but still want to bring home the Brutalist-cool energy of Canal? Natalia Criado’s silverware homeware might help you do just that.
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