This weekend was designed to be spent in the English countryside, so that's exactly what I did. I spent the day in Petworth, West Sussex, exploring all its new offerings. Like many country villagers, it has become a commuter haven and a whole lot of new businesses have taken advantage of the cheaper commercial property rents and set up boutique offerings here. But this one took my breath away.
The shop immediately grabs your attention with its contemporary and beautiful window displays framed by a typical Sussex cottage. Spanning over at least three building we reckon, the shop-come-cafe displays itself with effortless style and thougtful design layout.
Walking into the small, coffee bean smelling cafe area you can buy a coffee (and danishes) to go at a very reasonable rate (£1.80 for Americano and £2.30 for others). It then leads through in to a beautifully displayed shopping area with simple, uniformed, basic but sophisticated Hungry Guest packaging, where you can buy cooking ingredients spanning from caster sugar to dried chillies. You are then presented a fresh fruit and vegetable display (all locally sourced where possible) and and two impecable meat counters (one displaying cured meats, sausages etc and the other fresh meat cuts). Like all their food, their meats are specially handpicked by their founder (and master baker) Troels Bendix, charcuterie from Spanish experts Brindisa and Italian experts Villanova; meat from local Sussex and Surrey farms and cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy and Mons. They keep their cheese in a sealed cheese room keeping the dairy produce super fresh and keeping the shop floor rosie to smell! They even provide seasonal home made ready meals, cooked in their kitchen in small batches.
Like they say on their website, "The Hungry Guest is serious about food" Their beautiful breads are an essential purchase, and are made by Troels and his team in the bakery and taste and look amazing!
Their staff are warm and welcoming and eager to help and share their knowledge and expertise. You can tell that they're passionate about what their doing. They have their ethos written upon the walls and after a chat with one of the staff members, was told that they plan to have either a cafe or shop (or both) in every market town of Sussex - which is a driven dream if ever I heard one!
From a design point of you I can't fault the brand. The company ethos is honest, genuine and has struck the perfect balance between hand crafted, expert professional and total love and care about what they do. The shop interior is welcoming but so clean you can tell that there is true methodology, a a strive for excellence and detail but no hint of stressed perfection or arrogance. A pleasure to shop in, eat in or just walk around in!
0 comments:
Post a Comment