What had always been a longing to run my own restaurant, quickly became my whole world. There’s so many passion stories that are well produced so I won’t bore you with all details, but long story short ; I decided to throw it all in and put my passion for food at the forefront of my focus and put design work on the back-burner for a couple of years.

The Inspiration:

The Lion’s Den seemed a fitting name for I was entering into something very scary and daunting. I’m also aptly named Daniel. A passionate foodie, I’m all about local and seasonal food and being a creative, the menu had to change all the time as well! So being bold was a major part of the brand identity, along with drawing from my jewish-european heritage and love of mediterranean food. Believe it or not, the branding part was the easiest part of the whole project! See moodboard below.

The Food

The pictures below are rather self-explanatory, but let me tell you some more! We managed to partner with a local bio-dynamic farmer who was supplying us with beautiful, fresh seasonal produce. Ottolenghi was a major inspiration for our vegetable resourcefulness and presentation whilst the myriads of chef’s I’ve spent time with in my youth have taught me a thing or two about good food. Eliot of Great British Chefs is one of my best friends and food teachers. And if I have to be really real, then the Netflix series Chef’s Table has to be mentioned.

The Renovations

Working with very little budget, I managed to give the whole service area a facelift. It was successfully transported from a cheap and cheerful country restaurant to a dark, trendy mediterranean one. Galleries below show a few renovation shots and a few snippets from my mood-board - Pinterest is an amazing resource for things like this.