Read what Shimona Bhansali, Chief Designer and Founder of Design Hex, has to say about designing the lively restaurant below.

Locco is located in the Navi Mumbai, which is a fairly new and young city; on the ground floor of a ‘not so lively’ mall which is located on a ‘very lively’ street popular for all its eating joints with a lot of options for restaurants, pubs, and cafe’s. Making the place stand out and draw the crowds inside was very important. So we decided to open up the space by cutting open large the arch windows and brick wall to emulate the heritage vibe of the art deco feel of downtown Bombay. That somehow will always have an undying charm.

We maintained raw exposed ceiling and walls that were painted dark grey to highlight the vintage town ambience. We used combinations of pale pink, bottle green and tones of blue within the space along with prints and patterns. The highlight of the space was the 16 feet bird like customized lights suspended from the ceilings. These large lights were the only central source of light in the entire space.

Featuring multifunctional artistic spaces, one of the main features of this restaurant was the liquor store. The customers could buy their own liquor bottles, which will remain at the restaurant for future serving to that particular customer. To highlight this feature, we created an abstract display area for the bottles and used bright contrasting colours like blue, orange and pink. The neon lights brought out the ‘madness’ theme perfectly. This particular area is made on a raised platform which is also used for live performances. The flooring is accentuated with zig zag  patterns of the same raw grey stone and pale pink tiles. The liquor area shelving acts as an interesting background for the performers hence adding a dual function to the space.

Since the location is surrounded by tall buildings, we wanted to bring greenery into the space. We achieved this by designing full height screens for plants and artefacts, green wall installations and creating dummy balconies with metal railings and plants to give the customers a great view. We also created mirror installations and added quirky artwork in the space to compliment the theme.