Thai Brasserie by Blue Elephant

After 40 prestigious years representing worldwide as a royal Thai cuisine ambassador, Blue Elephant group, having six restaurants in five countries, two cooking schools, and a premium Thai grocery supply business, launched its first mall restaurant ‘Thai Brasserie by Blue Elephant’ in Phuket to open doors to wider groups of Thai food admirers. The identity and spatial experience of this outlet are a blueprint to the expansion of an unaccustomed fast-casual Thai restaurant concept, adopting a vibrant, experimental, and dynamic gastronomy execution presented with the legacy of Blue Elephant. Studio Locomotive extracted these aspiring business intentions and implied the communicative experiential space to define and strengthen the directions of branding strategy and business character, which are shifted from or, in some certain perspectives, influenced by the parent brand. The clear representations, manifested in the use of symbolic colors, expressive materiality and detailing, and storytelling visual art, benefits this new brand to take advantage of Blue Elephant’s trusted legacy, meanwhile, introduces how this restaurant by Blue Elephant is liberalised to be able to explore, experiment, and localise the gastronomic concept favorable for its adaptability to expand overseas, reasonability of implementing lower price positioning, and attractiveness to the new targeted customer groups dining in the malls. To optimize a deep layout that pushes a valuable number of tables in leaving one far opening view to the front, a 27-meter-long Thai mural-inspired wall, devised from triple-layer printed glass mirrors, creates a depth to illusively broaden the inner dining area. 3 of 5 glass panes are the art-filled displays for the video mapping projection playing an original animated illustration ‘The Exploration of The Elephant Calf’ to favor the business in attracting impulsive mall-goers and its marketing in encouraging an advocative customer-generated content. This 118-square-meter dining space was managed to fit a variety of seating styles from versatile square tables, long detachable sofas, communal table, café lounges, to bar stools to accommodate different dining preferences and group sizes including solo mall-goers. In coloration and materiality, blue, as a predominant color choice, represents an indicative identity to the parent brand. Warm palettes, from the wooden furniture, rattan fabric, fine leather, and antique brass, tone a sense of sophistication and neutral balance. A sprinkle of contrasting bright yellow signals the younger and liberal impression. Green foliage décor complements the jungle-scene mural.