TUMAMIGUI / NENDO / 2015.04 / THE NEW SUSHIRO RESTAURANT

A total redesign of the conveyor-belt sushi restaurant ‘Sushiro’ – including a new name, logo, graphics, cutlery, uniforms and interior – on the occasion of its move to a format more suitable to urban locations. In order to create a more comfortable environment for solo female diners, a new system has been introduced that allows orders to be customised using a tablet device. The customer can choose from a wide range of options, including the amount of rice and wasabi, the size of seafood pieces, and other toppings and sauces to suit their preferences. 

 

So far, large ‘Sushiro’ stores have been able to respond to a large amount of orders due to their operational excellence, and the idea was to extend this excellence to a smaller-sized restaurant to fulfill detailed orders rapidly. In order for the customers to ‘pick and eat’ –tumamigui in Japanese- the food while they decide what to order, various small dishes are placed on the round counter table. The self-service cutlery is raindrop-shaped, making it easy to ‘pick and eat’ food; also, the plates form a flower-like shape when placed on the tray. 

 

This raindrop shape is inspired by the idea of feeling free to ‘pick and eat’ whatever one likes, and in addition to being used for the cutlery and logo, it can be found throughout the stores – on the coasters, chopsticks sleeves, the shop curtain, and it is even implemented in the shape of the table tops. Each table’s colour combination and furniture is different in order to suit each customer’s unique dining experience. The restaurant’s name, ‘tumamigui’ – a casual and unrestricted pick-and-eat style of dining – reflects the ultimate luxury of being able to eat ‘whatever you like, however much you like, and whenever you like’. The logo represents the idea of ‘picking’ your favourite dishes.

 

PROJECT CREDITS

Client: Sushiro 

Design Collaborator: Masumi Hotta (NOMURA Co., Ltd)

 

PHOTO CREDITS

By Akihiro Yoshida (products) & Jimmy Cohrssen (space)

 

BIO: Oki Sato

-Chief Designer and Founder of nendo.

-Born in 1977 in Toronto, Canada. Received M.Arch. from WasedaUniversity, Tokyo in 2002.

-Established design studio “nendo” in the same year.

-Chosen by Newsweek magazine as one of “The 100 Most Respected Japanese” and won many “Designer of the Year” of major awards include from Wallpaper magazine, Elle Deco magazine. Activity in the design world has not been limited to any one area but is rather multifarious, spanning from graphic and product design to designing furniture, installations, windows, and interiors, and even reaches into the realm of architecture.