M&B’s south east Asian street food concept Tuk Cho opens in Ealing

3rd February 2012, 4:08pm

Mitchells & Butlers, south east Asian street food concept Tuk Cho, has had a successful launch in Ealing, London after a Newcastle-based agency completed the interior design.

Dakota House of Design approached the brand's development team last year and took part in a competitive pitch to design the concept, which is the first new dining brand from M&B for a number of years.

Caroline Morris, Tuk Cho development manager, explained what the business was looking for: "We identified an opportunity within the Asian cuisine category and believe Tuk Cho will allow us to extend our reach to a new group of diners who are relatively young and eat out regularly. We also wanted to be accessible to families with a fresh, healthy but authentic food and drink offer and an adventurous yet accessible range of flavours. Dakota's Tuk Cho concept really hits the mark and we are delighted with initial feedback on the first outlet."

Dakota uses north east suppliers whenever possible in its work and Tuk Cho was no exception with Jonsigns, Architectural Metalwork, the North East Timber Flooring Company and Artistix, all playing prominent roles in delivering the concept at the pilot venue.

Dakota's managing director, Peter Hodgson, said: "We were absolutely delighted to be asked to take part. I had lived in Australia and worked in South East Asia for a while and was familiar with the whole street dining and market place experience in places such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia, so this really helped in shaping our design concepts.

"The vibrancy of these small street dining stalls comes from the range of fresh produce on offer with its vivid colours, while the locations themselves reflect a more neutral backdrop of timber and concrete so we went for a similar stripped back approach in our design solution.

"Mitchells & Butlers did not want the look to be overly themed but as real as possible, so we focused on getting the internal sensory experience right, rather than focusing on the external appearance. It was a risk, but it paid off for us."

In early 2011, M&B abandoned its bid for the Asian restaurant chain, Tampopo, in favour of developing this concept.

Related PDFs:

Peter Hodgson and interior designer Terri Naylor

TUK CHO - INSIDE

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