Four leading florists have created installations transformed numerous areas of the London restaurant Sketch into blooming gardens or woodland glades in order to celebrate the Chelsea Flower Show, which is taking place this week. The Mayfair restaurant invited the florists to develop installations showcasing their skills at the event, which Sketch has labelled the “Mayfair Flower Show” in reference to the famous horticultural show taking place in Chelsea. Each installation celebrates the British countryside, so only plants found in the UK were used, including birch, roses, foxgloves and lily of the valley.
The entrance to the building, which was designed by James Wyatt in 1779, was decorated by The Flower Appreciation Society, and is filled with plants and foliage, creating a wild and verdant passage leading to the reception area. For the staircase, meanwhile, By Appointment Only was influenced by the romantic style of Victorian art, so the top of the staircase is decorated liberally roses and various other flowers that create a bright arrangement resembling the palette of Impressionist painters.
“This show is what Sketch is about; bringing together creative minds with different styles under the same roof”
The staircase descends towards the restaurant's Gallery dining room, which features walls lined with sketches by British artist David Shrigley, who previously designed a ceramic tea service for serving afternoon tea at the restaurant. Shrigley is the second artist invited to decorate the interior of the Gallery, after Martin Creed filled the space with eclectic vintage furniture and added zigzagging marble floor tiles and graphic patterns to the walls.
In the Champagne Pommery Lounge, housed in Sketch's Glade cocktail area, London florist JamJar attached hundreds of blooms to a suspended mesh to create an intensely colourful floral canopy that complements the painted woodland murals covering the walls. Finally, Carly Rogers Flowers transformed an area at the top of the stairs leading to the space housing the restaurant's unusual pod-shaped toilets into a woodland garden. A carpet of moss covers a domed surface, providing a base for a tree stump, plants, grasses, trees and flowers including foxgloves.
Sketch Founder and Owner, Mourad Mazouz, said of the installations: “This flower show is what Sketch is about; bringing together creative minds with different styles under the same roof. The project fits perfectly with how Sketch is often described; an Alice in Wonderland journey as you wander from room to room, and in this case from garden to garden. I feel all four installations work independently and are so magical that you forget the space they're in. At the same time, the gardens only exist because of the room they are in. If you think with this project that each room is a landscape, the installations by all four florists explore their relationship with the building.”
“All four installations work independently and are so magical that you forget the space they're in is a restaurant”
Alongside the event, the restaurant is offering a floral-inspired lunch menu featuring flowers in all three courses, a floral afternoon tea, and a specially devised cocktail made using rose liqueur. The installations will remain in place until 29 May (this Sunday), so if you're in the area this weekend we thoroughly recommend checking it out. If you can get a reservation that is!
