American lifestyle hotel brand NoMad opened its first European and international property in London this June 2021. The 91-room venue is a partnership between Sydell and investment firm BTC UK.

NoMad London has been nearly four years in the making and with multiple opening date push backs over the last 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is one of London’s most highly anticipated new hotel openings of 2021!

Housed in a 19th century, Grade II listed building, the NoMad London occupies the former Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and Police Station building, close to Covent Garden. In keeping with its heritage, New York-based interior design studio Roman and Williams, took inspiration from the history of the building. Some of the former police station cells remain and have been converted into unique bedrooms whilst the original courtroom is now a large dining room and events space.

The hotel features a number of food and beverage areas, open to both hotel guests and the public. The all-day dining space, NoMad Restaurant, which also aids the room service capabilities of the hotel, sits in the three-story glass atrium, and is headed up by chef Ashley Abodeely whose career has been built in Eleven Madison Park and NoMad’s in LA and NYC and master mixologist Leo Robitschek. The two NoMad alumni have put their stamp all over the various eateries and drinking stations at NoMad London, which includes Side Hustle, a bar/pub-like space serving Californian and Mexican-inspired sharing plates and tequila and mezcal-based drinks, and craft cocktail bar, Common Decency.

With such a high-profile food and beverage team on board, designs for NoMad’s kitchens and bars were heavily influenced by the wants and needs of the professional chefs and bartenders running them.

Tricon Foodservice Consultants were appointed by Sydell Group. The brief was to deliver well-considered, ergonomically planned kitchens and bars that look stunning, optimise use of space and deliver excellent working environments. Similarly, the laundry design of the hotel was also required. From initial analysis and calculation of volumes, through to fully coordinated design, our laundry designers optimised the use of space to allow for efficient logistics and space management.

Logistics and flow of the kitchens was the biggest challenge faced by the Tricon team. Tricon Design Director, Gary Thompson said, “Due to the listed status of the building, walls and other structures could not be removed, and work arounds needed to be found. Routes for goods-in to the kitchen for example, required some clever use of existing corridors to ensure a smooth flow for the kitchen operations. The show kitchen which features an open grill also needed to be carefully positioned and thought out in terms of adequate ventilation supply, whilst not compromising the structure of the listed building. The project will stand out as a particularly challenging one for the team, but also one to be especially proud of as we found a solution to every potential problem, resulting in a back of house and kitchen design that the Executive Chef team was really happy with.”