El Camerino

Located in the iconic neighbourhood of Russafa, in Valencia, El Camerino is a local with 10 years on its back. To properly celebrate its first decade in operations, the owner decided to change its aspect and invest on a new design. That’s how this project started, based on just a name and some ideas that had been implemented throughout the years. The challenge was to give El Camerino a full conceptual coherence.

Camerino is the Spanish word to refer to the backstage dressing-room in any theatre. It is as word that automatically evokes the mystery and hidden part of any play. It’s the start and end of everything in the theater. It is in the dressing room that artists gather before the play to offer the best version of them, and it is in the dressing room where they party after a successful night. It is in the dressing room that some of the best stories are untold, and it also acts as a meeting point in between the stage and the prop-full corridors of any club. And that idea of “El Camerino” is the one connecting the design of the restaurant.

Starting at the entrance, we see a small terrazzo bar handcrafted by Huguet Mallorca. A lamp lights up the operational and booking center of the local. We then move on to the first room, La Escena (the stage), where the color palette opens up, ranging from the corporative blue given by the restaurant, to the characteristic burgundy of any make-up base, widely used in theater. The three arch dominating the room are inspired by the typology of many classic theater boxes, and within their perimeter, a sofa meanders to act join them.

Some of the most relevant pieces of furniture in this room are the mirror circular table, formed with a base of five cylinders, and the widely published chair “La Prima”, also by Bodegón Cabinet.

Before arriving to the second room, we will run through our “behind the scenes” space, a technical space that in this case comprehends the kitchen and the bathroom. This is a much more eclectic area that helps in the transition between two different worlds. On one hand, the stage room with its burgundy tones. On the other hand, a quick peep into a world of fetishes (like the blue color specified by the owner of the local), the gossiping and the confidences lived in the backstage, “El Camerino”.

“El Camerino” room is a spaced isolated by a curtain, where the blue color takes the center o the stage in different ways. Firstly, through the wall painting that runs all along the room, respecting and even framing the original textures of the local. Secondly, through different textiles with a unique graphic designed especially for “El Camerino”, by “El Gallinero Studio”. Here, a blue base combines with some figures linked to the gastronomical story of the restaurant. These fabrics upholster the acoustic panels that wrap the room with a round geometry, following the characteristic imagery of a dressing room boudoir. This geometry is further used to introduce some more elements, like the mirrors or the backrest of a new type of sofa designed for this room.

Design: Bodegon Cabinet
Photography: Jose Hevia