Farzi Cafe - Bellevue

Farzi Cafe - selfie wall; R Williamson, design mock-up; Bellevue, WA

Farzi Cafe, a gourmet pan-Indian restaurant born in India, has become an international brand, with 20 branch locations around the world. In the final month before the opening of the first one on the west coast, Amit Upadhyay and his partners decided that they needed a selfie wall near the back entrance. In a last minute effort and with not much material to work with I designed a very layered composition to be used as a backdrop by patrons of the restaurant. The space, along the street at Bellevue Square is also very deep with no natural light at the back so taking one wall to kind of go a bit crazy with color and pattern was seen as a way to add a bit of visual spice to this area.

Farzi Cafe - selfie wall; R Williamson, painted graphics direct to wall (process shot); Bellevue, WA

Since this area is only a small part of longer wall here, the idea was to fade out the design into the surrounding deep blue green base color. This meant that it hand-painting was the way to go. This was done in a combination of house paint, Golden fluid acrylics, and Montana paint pens. Nothing was projected, just working freehand on this one.

Farzi Cafe - selfie wall with Chef Vinayak P. (Mumbai) and Chef Romit (Delhi); R Williamson, painted graphics direct to wall; Bellevue, WA

There were a few other areas in the place that I addressed but as of this writing the space is still cluttered with tall stacks of boxes and some random construction equipment. Opening is scheduled for the end of the month.

An odd distinction of this space for me personally is that this marks the third time that I’ve done some art decor for a new restaurant here. It first appeared as a branch of Pallino, then later became Moksha, and now Farzi Cafe. Chefs Romit and Vinayak are just two of the seven chefs brought in create the items on the menu. For lovers of Indian food with a penchant for innovation, Farzi should be something special.