Morito is a small Tapas Bar for the owners of the venerable restaurant Moro in London’s Exmouth Market. We worked in a collaborative way with owners Sam and Sam Clark and the artist Dillwyn Smith.

The brief for Morito was to have it look and feel like a local tapas bar or restaurant in rural Spain or Damascus. Un-designed with harsh lighting but welcoming and atmospheric. We invested in a process of investigation and iteration. We started by paring the space back to its bare historic bones – beautiful rough, uneven brick walls were revealed which we lime plastered so the texture and presence of the brick stayed in the space. Dillwyn Smith undertook an experimental process that imbued certain energies as he painted by eating different foods made at the bar. These paintings were then made into tiles for the bar front. The single fluorescent diamond shaped ceiling light was inspired by a trip Sam and Sam made to Damascus early in 2010.

This project was nominated for a Conde Naste Design innovation award alongside Tom Dixon.