A live-work community in west London adds a buzzy restaurant to the mix

When Mason & Fifth coopted a patch of postindustrial west London for its new complex of short lets and leisure spaces, it saved a slice of land abutting the Grand Union Canal for the project’s social heart. Acclaimed restaurant outfitters A-Nrd were called in to warm up the brand new space that took the place of the defunct Taxi Drivers’ Association HQ. But while the name, Canal, recalls the rehabilitated waterway outside, travelled by narrowboats and joggers, A-Nrd took inspiration from the Brutalist towers and bygone commercial spaces around Westbourne Park for its interiors.

Partners Alessio Nardi and Lukas Persakovas played up the industrial workings of the empty shell they’d been given, finessing a highly tactile, raw concrete backdrop that doesn’t intimidate. Crude concrete columns and micro-cement floors ground the space as visible conduits form a checkerboard overhead with painted pipe-work and stage lighting.

But guests only really come into contact with the more refined counterpoints of the scheme: the zinc-clad tables, the upholstered chiselled-beech banquettes, the live-edge stone countertop for the sculptural central bar, panelled in hand-folded zinc. London-based Interior Address procured the Frama wood dining chairs and whippet-thin barstools from Sweden’s Massproductions.

‘We didn’t want to over-design the space,’ says Nardi, ‘The architecture had a directness and rhythm that resonated with our approach, and we drew on the site’s industrial past and waterside setting to create a space that feels layered and expressive.’

With circulation important and the water so close, openness was a priority of the design. Large-format windows open onto a 30-seat terrace with slimline black steel furnishings. Sightlines reach deep into the open kitchen, where an awning of rippled-glass clerestory windows catches the light. Those dappled surfaces are picked out by handmade pendant lights from Findere, which switch on as the daylight disappears.

The 280 sq m London restaurant is operated by HAM Restaurants — the team behind Crispin in Spitalfields — as part of Mason & Fifth’s flexible mixed-use development. The property has 332 rooms available by the night or the month, along with a pool, gym, fitness studio, cinema, recording studio and 10th-floor panoramic lounge.