Fact File
Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra
Size: 32 sq m
Principal Architect: Akshaya Mestry
Photography by: Anish Padalkar

Wok This Way by Studio Mestry is a novel take on the traditional Indian-Chinese restaurant with a thoughtfully curated oriental theme. Circumventing the banality of traditional Asian motifs, the studio has employed an eclectic palette of woven cane, arches in the interior architecture, and laser-cut metal artwork. This project is a quick-service cafe serving traditional Asian cuisine with innovative combinations of locally sourced vegetables. The client brief given to us was simple; they wanted to create a cafe that would have an oriental look and feel and would also have an overall strong sense of identity as a space that would stand out in a neighbourhood that is overly crowded with restaurants and cafes. Our idea was to create a space that would reflect the food that Wok This Way offers—simple, clean, organic—while also creating a bright and inviting interior that adds a whimsical pop of orange to the street, as orange is their brand colour. Since it was a tiny space of roughly 33 square metres with a high ceiling, we wanted to create a more intimate experience while bringing out the oriental theme in as understated a manner as possible.

A combination of pale wooden seating, table tops, white walls and a black ceiling set against an orange wall make the space appear bigger and brighter. To add the informality of a street-like ambience, we used grey terrazzo floor tiles throughout the space, accentuated by lantern-like lighting. The facade features clear glass panels with a combination of orange powder-coated aluminium sections and solid panelling at the top and bottom to ensure maximum visibility. We worked closely with the client to conceive all of the restaurant’s graphic applications, adapting the existing identity with new iconography for signage, menus, partition wall art, and shopfront etched graphics, with all pattern work inspired by and adapted from traditional Asian designs. We wanted to avoid clichéd references to Chinese culture in India and thus refrained from using obvious traditional patterns or symbols anywhere in the space. Instead, we used contemporary elements to redefine the Asian design, such as the use of a cane as backrests and different patterns and line graphics within the kitchen wall partition and wall art.

Traditional woven cane is used in the space through a series of arches for the kitchen partition and high backrests for the seating. The laser-cut metal artwork is fixed on top of the cane backrest, which is inspired by oriental cuisine. Along with the cane, inspiration was also drawn from the traditional Asian window design with mullion grids for the backrest. On one of the walls, there is wall art with a contemporary take on Oriental patterns and graphics, as well as planters suspended from dim sum boxes. On the opposite wall, four wooden shelves are placed to display artefacts and more greens. These are supported by orange metal rings of different sizes. Thus, the material palette used in the space consists of neutral colours: Ashwood laminate, grey terrazzo flooring, and white walls with hints of orange throughout. Overall, the design is kept simple by using geometrical shapes, clean graphics, and arches set against a vibrant orange backdrop, with lots of plants throughout the space.