Holm: A Restaurant With Rooms, Where "Simplicity Rules" - Remodelista
“It was early January 2021, and it was still very much a building site,” chef Nicholas Balfe recalls of his first site visit to what is now Holm, his restaurant with just-opened rooms in the village of South Petherton. It made sense, then, for the restaurant to come with rooms. Inspired by the original double-height arched window on the stairs and the fan light above the entrance door, the architects, Gundry & Ducker, introduced a semi-circle detail above the fireplace in the restaurant, exposing the hamstone lintel and the brick construction. Photograph by Ed Schofield. In the 34-cover restaurant, hard-at-work chefs (minus their pink hard hats) are busy in the open kitchen. The fireside seating area at the entrance to Holm. Photograph by Ed Schofield. Nicholas Balfe, the chef-director. Nicholas worked with the interior designer Decca Lang on the seven guest rooms, which are named after British trees. Photograph by Ed Schofield. The largest room, Elm, overlooks the main thoroughfare in sleepy South Petherton and boasts an in-room egg bath and bespoke minibar. A simple chest of drawers in Juniper: “It can be really hard to balance design decisions next to practicality,” says Decca, “but the rooms were designed to be just enough, with everything in the right place.” The furniture for each room was sourced from local auction houses and markets with the help of Origo House, a local furniture sourcing company. The Sessile bedroom, where Nicholas held his first site meeting. Paper lanterns and wool blankets bring texture and softness to each of the rooms. The en-suites are clad in zellige tiles and include rain showers and natural products made by Haeckels. Locally foraged flowers cast shapes on the raw plaster in the Rowan room. Hornbeam is a loft room featuring an imposing chimney stack, whitewashed beams, and a bath in the bedroom. The chimneystack in Hornbeam. The mid-century architectural prints above the four-poster in Elm are from Mount Collective. The Juniper room, featuring artwork by Tom Morris (above the bed), Alexandra Robinson, and Caziel. Outside his shifts in the kitchen, Nicholas is focused on increasing productivity in the vegetable garden and holding more events on the terrace, which is now clear of the concrete bank vault.