Bacchanalia

Main dining room of Bacchanalia in daylight, white Damien Hirst sculptures of a winged unicorn with lovers and a serpent-haired female figure flying beneath a painted sky ceiling, red leather chairs on a geometric marble mosaic floor, a balustraded mezzanine and a gilded bar beyond
Location: London, United KingdomType: Restaurant InteriorYear: 2022Architect: Martin Brudnizki Design StudioPhotographer: Johnny Stephens
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Bacchanalia by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio in London, United Kingdom

Bacchanalia is a Greco-Roman restaurant interior on the corner of Mount Street and Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London, designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio for the restaurateur Richard Caring and his group Caprice Holdings. Named after the Roman festivals of Bacchus, the god of wine, it occupies a former Porsche showroom at 1 Mount Street and opened on 1 December 2022, after a launch party in November. Its main dining room is ruled by five monumental white sculptures by Damien Hirst, set beneath a hand-painted ceiling and beside floor-to-ceiling murals by Gary Myatt, and it is furnished with Greek and Roman antiquities, many of them more than 2,000 years old. The studio had already rebuilt Caring’s members’ club Annabel’s around the corner in 2018, and Bacchanalia takes its taste for fantasy further still, joining the theatrical London dining rooms of The Gallery at Sketch and the gilded Belle Époque hall of Le Train Bleu in Paris.

Gary Myatt's floor-to-ceiling mural after Thomas Couture's Romans in their Decadence framed by a stone arch at Bacchanalia, the Golden Gate Bridge among its columns, red velvet banquettes and lamp-lit tables below and a marble bust on a plinth at right

From Porsche showroom to Greco-Roman banquet hall

Behind the transformation lies a substantial piece of construction. The fit-out contractor Brown & Carroll describes trenching and piling beneath the old showroom and the building of a cantilevered mezzanine, so that the premises could carry the weight of marble, stone, ornamental metalwork and statuary demanded by the design, and it puts the cost of turning the garage into a restaurant at £75 million. The result is a tall, colonnaded hall with a balustraded mezzanine wrapping around its upper level. The Evening Standard’s critic Jimi Famurewa described stepping “utterly agog, into its colonnaded hall of rippling stone, triple-height frescoed ceilings, and serpentine wall sconces in glittering alcoves.” Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, the London and New York practice founded by the Swedish-born designer Martin Brudnizki, is known for maximalist hospitality interiors, and here every surface is put to work in telling a story of classical myth and excess.

Damien Hirst's serpent-haired Medusa reaching upwards in white against the clouded painted ceiling of Bacchanalia, shafts of light cutting across the frame and a classical column top at her side

Damien Hirst’s flying sculptures and Gary Myatt’s murals

The five Hirst sculptures hang from the ceiling of the main room as if flying through the painted sky: a winged lion, a unicorn ridden by a pair of winged lovers, a second unicorn, Medusa with her crown of serpents, and Bacchus himself. Their pale, smooth forms float above the red leather chairs and velvet banquettes, catching the light from the coves and the columns around them. Across the back wall, Gary Myatt, who also painted murals at Annabel’s, has reinterpreted Thomas Couture’s 1847 painting Romans in their Decadence as an immense banquet scene framed by a stone arch. Myatt’s classically dressed revellers lounge among the colonnades much as Couture painted them, but some are using laptops and holding up iPhones, and the Golden Gate Bridge rises between the columns behind them, a sly joke on modern wealth and its pleasures. In front of the murals, Roman and Greek busts in coloured marble stand on plinths among the tables, part of a collection of period and modern classical art that runs through the whole restaurant.

The Garden of the Hesperides ladies' restroom at Bacchanalia, walls and domed ceiling covered in mosaic branches heavy with golden fruit, a glowing onyx bowl basin in the centre on a radiating marble floor and arched mirrors around the walls

Gold leaf, mosaics and the onyx bar

The materials are as lavish as the imagery. More than 300 books of 24-carat gold leaf were used across the interiors, and the Italian mosaic company Sicis made the floors of the restaurant, bar and private club in multicoloured marble mosaic, custom-designed and inspired by the houses of ancient Rome, handcrafted at its Ravenna headquarters and assembled on site. The long, curved bar has a fluted stone front set with carved lion heads, and statues line its counter; above it, Tony Sandles Glass made a canopy of diamond-shaped silver-leaf mirrors over the backlit onyx bar, as well as bevelled silver-leaf mirror panels set into burgundy velvet screens that separate the bar from the dining room and the slightly distressed gilded mirror tops of the bistro tables. Tillys Interiors produced a bespoke café curtain system with twisted uprights, cast brass flame finials and LED strips hidden inside the rods, while Design & Visual cast the stone-effect balustrade of the mezzanine, in three curving bays with a separate balustrade around the DJ booth, in Jesmonite matched to Portland stone samples chosen by the designers.

Daytime view of Gary Myatt's Roman banquet mural at Bacchanalia, reclining classical figures with an open laptop and a raised phone before colonnades and the Golden Gate Bridge, a marble bust in the foreground and pleated lampshades over the tables

The Garden of the Hesperides, Hades and Artemis

Beyond the main room, different spaces pay tribute to different figures and places of Greek and Roman myth. The ladies’ restroom recreates the Garden of the Hesperides, where golden apples grow: more than 400,000 tiles cover its walls and domed ceiling with glass mosaic branches heavy with golden fruit, and a glowing onyx basin stands at its centre on a radiating marble floor. The men’s restroom, in contrast, is the underworld of Hades, with black and white marble mosaics and high-gloss black fittings. On the mezzanine, beside the DJ booth, the private dining room Artemis looks out over Berkeley Square and brings its guests eye to eye with the Hirst sculptures, and hidden at the back of the building is Apollo’s Muse, a members’ club that opened the following year and takes its inspiration from the gallery of the Villa Albani in Rome. The kitchen, led by the chef Athinagoras Kostakos, serves Greek and Italian dishes designed to be shared and finished with some theatre at the table, and the wine list runs to more than 650 references, served by staff in togas.

Rows of lamp-lit tables with cane-backed chairs and crystal glasses in the Bacchanalia dining room, a dark marble bust on a plinth and red-shaded lamps standing before the warm-toned mural of Roman revellers

Photography and credits

The gallery above opens with the main dining room in daylight, Hirst’s unicorn and its winged lovers flying beneath the painted ceiling, followed by Gary Myatt’s mural seen through its stone arch in the evening and the long bar with its lion heads and mirrored canopy. Then come Hirst’s Medusa against the clouds, a marble bust among the tables, the Garden of the Hesperides restroom with its mosaic branches and onyx basin, and the velvet banquettes beneath the mezzanine. The second half shows the mural by day, with its laptop, phone and Golden Gate Bridge, the upper level with its red banquette and gilded wall, the dining tables with their busts and lamps, a quiet table by the balustrade and the second bar, and four portrait views of the sculptures and busts. All sixteen photographs are by Johnny Stephens Photography, as published by Dezeen, on the Bacchanalia website and in the photographer’s own portfolio.

Portrait view of a white winged beast from the Hirst sculptures swooping above the Bacchanalia dining room, Gary Myatt's mural with the Golden Gate Bridge beneath the arch and a marble bust over the glowing tables below

Bacchanalia gallery

Main dining room of Bacchanalia in daylight, white Damien Hirst sculptures of a winged unicorn with lovers and a serpent-haired female figure flying beneath a painted sky ceiling, red leather chairs on a geometric marble mosaic floor, a balustraded mezzanine and a gilded bar beyondDamien Hirst's white sculpture of a rearing winged unicorn carrying a pair of embracing winged lovers above the Bacchanalia dining room, a second unicorn behind, a painted ceiling of classical figures overhead and Gary Myatt's mural glimpsed through an archGary Myatt's floor-to-ceiling mural after Thomas Couture's Romans in their Decadence framed by a stone arch at Bacchanalia, the Golden Gate Bridge among its columns, red velvet banquettes and lamp-lit tables below and a marble bust on a plinth at rightThe long curved bar at Bacchanalia with a fluted stone front set with carved lion heads, a canopy of diamond-patterned mirrors over gold mosaic niches and backlit bottles, white classical statues on the counter and a line of patterned stools on a mosaic floorDamien Hirst's serpent-haired Medusa reaching upwards in white against the clouded painted ceiling of Bacchanalia, shafts of light cutting across the frame and a classical column top at her sideA Roman-style marble bust in multicoloured stone drapery on a pedestal in the dim Bacchanalia dining room, glowing table lamps and a second bronze-toned bust before the painted mural behind, a white sculpted wing curving overheadThe Garden of the Hesperides ladies' restroom at Bacchanalia, walls and domed ceiling covered in mosaic branches heavy with golden fruit, a glowing onyx bowl basin in the centre on a radiating marble floor and arched mirrors around the wallsRed velvet banquettes with gold cushions and gilded glass screens beneath the curving balustraded mezzanine at Bacchanalia, the gold mosaic back bar lined with statues behind and white Hirst sculptures twisting around the stone columns at rightDaytime view of Gary Myatt's Roman banquet mural at Bacchanalia, reclining classical figures with an open laptop and a raised phone before colonnades and the Golden Gate Bridge, a marble bust in the foreground and pleated lampshades over the tablesA curved red velvet banquette with patterned gold cushions around a Greek-key-edged table on the upper level of Bacchanalia, a glittering gilded wall at right, white sculptures and a stone balustrade at left and painted cherubs on the ceilingRows of lamp-lit tables with cane-backed chairs and crystal glasses in the Bacchanalia dining room, a dark marble bust on a plinth and red-shaded lamps standing before the warm-toned mural of Roman revellersA softly lit table with a pleated gold lamp and crystal glasses beside a carved stone balustrade at Bacchanalia, chair backs with lion-head ring pulls and a second bar beyond with glassware hanging over backlit bottlesPortrait view of a white winged beast from the Hirst sculptures swooping above the Bacchanalia dining room, Gary Myatt's mural with the Golden Gate Bridge beneath the arch and a marble bust over the glowing tables belowClose view of the winged lovers embracing on the rearing unicorn sculpture at Bacchanalia, white wings and drapery caught in warm light against the painted ceiling, with the head of a marble bust at the bottom of the frameA lamp-lit table for two with gold cane chairs beside the stone balustrade on the upper level of Bacchanalia, a white sculpture of two winged lovers embracing beyond the rail beneath the painted ceilingA marble bust in multicoloured stone drapery on a column plinth above a set table in the daylit Bacchanalia dining room, cane-backed chairs with lion-head ring pulls and the Golden Gate Bridge in the painted mural behind

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