The Tamarind Room
Sixty-four covers in a rubble-stone shell, lit almost entirely at table height.
Project information
- Location
- Mumbai, Maharashtra
- Year
- 2022
- Type
- Restaurant, 64 covers
- Area
- 3,400 sq ft
- Scope
- Interior architecture, joinery, lighting, tableware curation
- Status
- Completed
Design concept
Lit from the table up
The room is dark by design. Nothing above 1.9 metres is lit at all — the ceiling, the upper walls and the services simply disappear after six o’clock, and the restaurant becomes sixty-four separate pools of warm light.
The existing shell was a rubble-stone godown with a fine, irregular wall we had no interest in covering. It was repointed, brushed and left. New joinery is reclaimed oak, cut square and set against it without scribing.
Acoustics were the hardest problem: a hard stone room with 64 covers is unusable. A perforated timber soffit and heavy banquette upholstery brought reverberation down without adding anything visible.
Material palette
What the room is made of
Rubble stone
Existing shell, repointed with a lime mortar and left raw.
Handpainted tile
Bar front and service stations, four glazes fired together.
Reclaimed oak
Tabletops and soffit, planed but not sanded smooth.
Architecture
Decisions in plan and section
Shell
A 1940s stone godown; the wall was repointed and retained across all four elevations.
Soffit
Perforated oak raft with 60mm absorption above, concealing all services.
Kitchen
Pass reduced to a 2.1m opening so the dining room never sees kitchen light.
Interior
Decisions you can touch
Lighting
Nothing lit above 1.9m. Sixty-four table lamps and eight pendants at 2200K.
Seating
Banquettes on three sides in heavy wool; loose chairs only in the centre.
Tableware
Commissioned from a single studio, one clay body, four forms.
Gallery
The Tamarind Room in sequence
Project facts
Project facts
7 months
Duration
64
Covers
1.4s to 0.7s
Reverberation
Nothing above 1.9m
Lit height
Demo project — client and figures are sample content
