After opening Hostem and The New Road Residence, what’s a visionary creative couple to do?
Photography by Johan Dehlin, unless noted, all courtesy of Blue Mountain School and 6a architects.
The school is located on the corner of Redchurch Street in a building that 6a reinvented, starting with the facade of silver brick and galvanized steel that shimmers in the sun.
The architects worked in close collaboration with Brown and Fels: “We had intensive weekly design meetings with them for the better part of two years,” Fels tells us.
A central oak stair serves as the spine of the building.
On arrival, diners are served appetizers in the kitchen, which 6a outfitted with bespoke cabinets of Douglas fir topped with stainless steel.
The restaurant is run by Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes, a good friend of Brown’s, and was conceived by the two of them as a place to redefine the traditional dining experience: “Mãos was created with the humble dinner party in mind,” says Brown.
Handmade azulejo, traditional Portuguese tile, line the walls; they’re made by Ratton of Lisbon and incorporate 6a founder Stephanie Macdonald’s sketches of plants and flowers.”The drawings bring a sense of spatial depth and irregularity to the walls,” she says.
The dining room has raw gypsum plaster walls “spread roughly by hand, rather than smoothly floated,” specifies Watson.
The communal oak table was designed for the space by 6a and fabricated by Blue Mountain School’s in-house wood shop: “It had to be long to seat 14 guests, but also feel intimate and communal rather than ceremonial,” says Watson.
The meal—14 small courses with a Portuguese and Japanese inflection—is presented over the course of two and-a-half hours during which guests are encouraged to explore the adjacent wine room and even to wander into the kitchen.
Photograph by Tomas Jivanda.
Blue Mountain School’s roof terrace, home to its listening room, was designed by Valentin Loellmann. (An exhibition of Valentin Loellmann’s sculptural furniture is currently on view just downstairs at Blue Projects.)
Photograph by Jonas Loellmann.