Creating authenticity

A new restaurant chain launched by British-based chef, Yotam Ottolenghi, has an accompanying visual identity that evokes an authentic Middle Eastern experience.

The new identity for Sesame, a Mediterranean street food chain, was created by London-based Here Design. Here partner and designer, Caz Hildebrand, says, “We were delighted to work with Yotam again to bring his passion for cooking, food and flavour to a much wider audience. It’s a project right up our street, as our expertise is all about creating authentic cultural experiences rooted in heritage and provenance.”

The team at Here researched a wide variety of fast food restaurants across the Mediterranean with the aim of creating an identity that evokes Middle Eastern street food without being too specific to any one country. The new logo is inspired by Arabic script and the colour turquoise, a quintessential aspect of Mediterranean iconography, dominates the colour palette. Mosaic tiling also features in the new restaurants and the new packaging is intentionally simple, inexpensive and minimal, all contributing to an authentic Middle Eastern experience throughout.

Sesame opened to the public on 19 May 2015 and is the sixth restaurant devised and owned by Yotam Ottolenghi. Here have previously worked with Yotam Ottolenghi on Nopi, and his cookbooks Plenty, Plenty More and Jerusalem.

Noam Bar, Yotam’s business partner and the driving force behind Sesame, says, “Here Design played a major role within the design team. Together with the architects they devised a clear, striking and unique visual language. The resulting brand image is fantastic; however the ease, creativity, intelligence, and practicality that Here displayed during the design process are even more outstanding.”