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UK-based Guy Hollaway Architects has designed the Rocksalt Restaurant and Bar in Folkestone Harbour, Kent, England. It is the first restaurant venture for executive chef Mark Sargeant. Following is a description from the architects, “Won at national competition by Guy Hollaway Architects, it is the first complete building to be realized as part of Sir Terry Farrell’s Folkestone masterplan.
The completed restaurant and bar forms a crucial milestone in the regeneration of Folkestone’s ‘Old Town’ and harbour, serving to reconnect visitors and the population of the coastal town with the working harbour and seafront. The restaurant is located on Folkestone’s harbour edge, adjacent to its working slipway where local fishermen unload their catch, delivering fresh fish to the restaurant daily. It is hoped that the project will catalyse the ‘Padstow effect’.
At ground floor level, the restaurant has 86 covers and the opportunity for a private dining room. Large glass sliding doors allow uninterrupted panoramic views of fishing boats at high tide and sandy shingle flats at low tide. From the restaurant’s interior a cantilevered balcony, with a glass balustrade and curved soffit creates an extension of the internal dining area.
Liz Jeanes, interior designer at Guy Hollaway Architects led the interior scheme, taking strong influences from the immediate context. The interior colours emulate colours of the sea and sky – rising from dark, aquatic greens and dark tones of timber at ground floor; rising to a lighter palette of blues, greys and whites, contrasting with warmer shades of iroko on the first floor bar and terrace. A marble top to the ground floor bar and marble floor tiles show influences from traditional fishmonger interiors, whilst the main restaurant uses herringbone laid oak parquet flooring to emulate the scales of a fish.”
Photography: Paul Freeman, Via: ArchDaily
