Legado Shoreditch

Planting for Legado in Shoreditch — the contemporary Spanish restaurant from Chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho, of Sabor, built around the regional food cultures of Spain and its islands.

Planting that agrees with the food

The brief was unusually clear and unusually restrained: enliven the room without competing with the plates. For this chef the food is the whole point, and a restaurant scheme that pulls the eye away from a table is a scheme that has misunderstood the job.

So the planting takes its cue from the menu rather than from the interiors. Everything specified is a plant that lives outdoors year round in southern Spain and the Balearics — the same latitude the food comes from. Evergreen, so the room reads the same in January as in July, and quiet enough that you notice it after the food rather than before.

Terracotta rather than anything designed

Mixed terracotta planters, chosen to sit with the materials and finishes of the room instead of announcing themselves. Terracotta is the honest choice here: it is what those plants grow in where they come from, it ages rather than wears, and it does not ask to be looked at.

Credits

Client: Legado, Shoreditch
Chef: Nieves Barragán Mohacho
Design: Applied Studio
Planting: Plant Drop

Plant consultant: Dom Butler