An Italian-style terrace

British chef, Italian taste: BBC celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, owner of the Jamie’s Italian chain of restaurants, has chosen the style and quality of Italian tiles for the paving of the terrace in his new London restaurant. Born in 1975, the chef, writer and star of the programme The Naked Chef recently opened another restaurant in Denman Street in London’s Piccadilly district designed by the prestigious MBDS Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. A rustic contemporary space with cosy, elegant interiors, it features a large terrace paved with dark grey and cream coloured porcelain floor tiles from Ceramiche Keope in two different sizes (60×60 cm and 30×60 cm) arranged in an alternation of colours to create an original design effect.
For this terrace furnished with planters, wooden benches and tables, and contrasting red chairs, MBDS chose the K2 tile series for its urban flavour in keeping with the style of Jamie Oliver’s restaurants.
Martin Brudnizki Design has been working with Oliver since 2007 to guarantee a consistent stylistic identity across all restaurants in the chain, from the UK to Australia, while at the same time choosing unique designs, furnishings and surface coverings inspired by the specific buildings and the surrounding urban and geographical context.
The restaurants, like the one in Piccadilly, are modelled on typically Italian informal neighbourhood eateries and offer a healthy menu at affordable prices in a warm and rustic yet contemporary setting and with the kitchen always in view. The architects highlighted these distinctive features through their choice of natural materials for the furnishings and floor coverings. In particularly, they chose this boldly coloured porcelain tile for the terrace paving to create a sense of continuity between the interior and exterior and thus enhance what is a fairly unusual space for London. With its 20 mm thickness, this porcelain tile can be installed on raised floors (as in this project), set dry on sand, gravel or grass, or laid using traditional adhesive on a screed. Raised floor installation using polypropylene supports (fixed, adjustable or self-levelling) has the major benefit of allowing for quick and simple maintenance of the underfloor utilities (electricity, water, etc.).
Jamie Oliver is the proprietor of the Jamie’s Italian chain, consisting of around thirty locations worldwide, and of a number of other up-market restaurants in the UK, and is noted for his passion for Italian cuisine and for his tireless efforts in promoting higher quality meals in British and American schools. In 1999 he was asked by the BBC to host The Naked Chef, a highly successful programme that revolutionised TV cooking and was followed by the publication of a bestselling recipe book in the UK. The same year he cooked for the then British prime minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street. In 2005, Channel 4 broadcast “Jamie’s Great Italian Escape”, a six-part series devoted to Italian cooking which was subsequently aired in Italy.