Contrasting Colours and Toy-Like Furniture Turned a New Restaurant in Tbilisi into a Viral Sensation

Despite having opened only last December, CHICOS, a new restaurant in Tbilisi, Georgia, has already made a dent in the city’s gastronomic scene – the 18-seat eatery welcomes over 3,000 monthly guests.

Part of its popularity comes from its international menu showcasing modern Europeans and Latin America influences and all-day proposition which sees the compact venue transform from breakfast café in the morning, to bistro during the day, through to fine-dining restaurant and cocktail bar in the evening. Part of the buzz is due to its Instagrammable interiors, the work of local multidisciplinary design practice Tamashi Studio. A contrasting colour palette of cherry red and buttery cream, polished materials, and a range of sleek, toy-like furniture, custom-designed by the team, transform the Soviet-era brutalist premises into a convivial, punchy environment of minimalist playfulness.

Having to contend with a double-height space, Tamashi Studio founders Beso Turazashvili and Nikita Khudyakov enveloped it with cream-coloured wall panels that form a smooth two-metre-high zone in juxtaposition to the exposed building shell. The rounded forms and polished finish of the toy-like tables and chairs that the duo designed for Chicos’ enhance the contrast with the rough concrete surfaces, as does the choice of cherry red for some of the furniture, bar counter and bathroom vanity that whimsically pop out of the otherwise muted, achromatic interior. Stainless steel round tables and a curved glass-brick wall add to the scheme’s polished material palette and accentuate the airiness and lightness of the space.

The interplay between red and cream-coloured tables not only gives the restaurant its cool ambience and Instagram-friendly appeal, it also provides its young, social media savvy patrons the perfect backdrops to photograph the menu’s sumptuously colourful dishes. From breakfast favourites like eggs benedict on French brioche with Norwegian salmon, to Spanish and South American-inspired empanadas and tapas, to European meat and vegetarian main courses, and desserts like Argentinian alfajores and Basque cheesecake with sour berries sauce, Chicos’ diverse offerings become all the more delectable in Tamashi Studio’s effortlessly cool interiors.