A Michelin-starred restaurant needed a digital presence that was an emotional experience, not a simple informational site.
Cinematic layout with 35mm analog photography, dramatic chiaroscuro, breaking the grid and immersive parallax.
4.2s average session time, 12% booking click-through, 89% reduced bounce rate. An experience that feels more like a magazine than a website.
The goal was to create a digital presence that was an emotional experience before being informative. Not a website, but an extension of the restaurant's atmosphere: dark, tactile, sensual.
Every choice — from the film grain to the chiaroscuro of the images — is designed to transport the user into a dimension where food is not just nourishment, but an aesthetic ritual.
The images were designed to simulate a 35mm film shot on Kodak Portra 400. The visible grain, the motion blur and the sharp contrasts are not accidental: they are the aesthetic manifesto of the project.
Every photograph is built like a still frame from a film. Nothing is left to chance: the texture of the stone, the reflection of the sauce, the position of the light.
Nothing is centered. The images cut the screen diagonally, the texts nestle into the negative spaces. The layout lives on tension and balance.
Empty space is luxury. Huge distances between sections, generous margins, air that breathes. White (black) space becomes an active design element.
Text and image deliberately overlap. The traditional hierarchy is overturned: the title breaks out of the edges, embraces the photo, penetrates it.
The result is an interface that doesn't look like a website. It looks like a design magazine opened to a double spread. The user doesn't navigate: they explore. Every scroll reveals a new composition, a new visual rhythm.
Losing the user to fascinate them. This is the philosophy behind every fold of the page. No standard UI pattern, no card-column grid. Only compositions conceived as digital artworks.
The images move at a different speed than the texts (parallax). The smooth scroll makes every transition fluid, almost cinematic. The effect is deliberately destabilizing: the user doesn't control, they're transported.
The buttons become tactile elements, the links are almost invisible. Nothing should remind the user they're using a computer.
"We didn't design a website. We projected a state of mind. Every pixel is an ingredient. Every scroll is a bite."Margherita Arbata — Creative Direction