Run For The Hills help create Kricket’s creative identity
Having worked with the Kricket team on everything from interiors to a cookbook, it should come as no surprise that Run For The Hills continue to help create the restaurant brand’s creative identity.
London based creative design studio, Run For The Hills, has recently revealed their stunning interiors for the new Kricket restaurant in Brixton - but that’s not all. The award-winning creative studio has a long history with the Kricket team, having worked on the brand’s creative identity, website, Soho restaurant interiors – and most recently, the design for Kricket’s debut cookbook.
The brainchild of Chef Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell, Kricket began in 2015 when the duo set up their pop-up restaurant within a 20-seater shipping container at POP Brixton. Their first fully fledged restaurant – in Soho – has been a hit amongst diners and chefs alike, thanks to Chef Will’s charming re-inventions of Indian cuisine and flavours using seasonal British ingredients.
However, Kricket have returned to their roots for their second restaurant; Kricket Brixton is situated within two of Altantic Road’s arches.The restaurant features a signature, communal sharing table in one arch; around it sit an eclectic mix of vintage, bentwood styled chairs. Smaller tables for more intimate occasions are dotted along each of the arch’s curved edges, and the occasional sound of a train rattles overhead. In the other arch, guests will find a dedicated cocktail bar with plush leather booths, where Kricket’s iconic sharing plates can also be enjoyed.
“In terms of the look and feel of the new space, the design is barfly-moody meets under-the-arches cool,” says Anna Burles, the creative director of Run For The Hills. “A bit grungier than Soho, we’ve styled Kricket Brixton with a dusky palette, painting the corrugated curves of the two railway arch ceilings in a knocked back pink terracotta.”
“Hand painted wall tiles, crisp carrara white marble, distressed mesh and patinated iron finishes to the bar and restaurant keep the pinks and nudes urban and earthy, rather than sweet and girlie. All of which creates the perfect backdrop for pops of Kricket’s amazing brand orange-red, which really zings out. It’s a lo-fi, relaxed scheme, perfect for late night drinks, cocktails and Kricket’s utterly delicious signature small plates.”
The launch of Kricket Brixton also coincides with the launch of the brand’s debut cookbook, Kricket: An Indian Inspired Cookbook. Having worked intrinsically with Kricket for years, Run For The Hills understand how to reflect the brand’s ethos - when it came to deciding who would design the cookbook, they were the obvious choice. Everything from the book’s graphic look and feel is inspired by the design of the restaurants, which Run For The Hills have been majorly involved in.
The fish scale tiles are a well-known feature in the cocktail den basement of Kricket Soho; these have been replicated for the cookbook, and a new mandala made from the repetition of Kricket’s ‘K’ logo shines out in the brand’s signature red-orange. Both these motifs run throughout the book, framing the Hugh Johnson’s photographs of Kricket’s recipes.
Each chapter of the book is introduced by a range of new, quirky illustrations; inky blues, blushes and more of Kricket’s red-orange run throughout the book, keeping the look fresh and playful. Run For The Hills also opted for an urban, edgy typography and a bold, colour-pop scheme. “We were absolutely delighted to design Will’s cookbook, being passionate about book design,” says Chris Trotman, creative director of Run For The Hills. “Our aim was for it to be super-stylish and really pop out from the rest of the books on the shelf.”
For those that can’t get enough of Kricket, the cookbook – published by Hardie Grant Books – features over 80 Indian inspired dishes, including a range of diner favourites; visitors to Kricket Brixton are sure to see the cookbook scattered about the newly designed space. As for the future? Run For The Hills will be behind the interiors of Kricket’s next restaurant, at the recently renovated BBC Television Centre in White City – and we can’t wait to visit.
