Côt Parrilla is a restaurant in Leblon, a neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, that began as a delivery-only ‘dark’ kitchen before moving into a place of its own.
That shift called for an identity strong enough to support the new phase and stand out in a competitive food scene, with the restaurant turning to Brazilian design studio Estúdio Gole to create it.The restaurant’s concept turns on a meeting of East and West: Korean and Eastern barbecue techniques brought to a contemporary parrilla, the Argentine and wider South American style of grill, set against Western cuts and references. The decision that shaped the identity was one of degree – how far to let that meeting show, and how much to hold back.
From the first conversations, the client was clear that the combination “could be the biggest challenge of this project,” Gabriel Miranda, Partner at Estúdio Gole, tells us, so the studio set out to “understand in depth how much of this scale could be expressive or more subtle,” and defined that as “the success factor for this language to work.”
To find the balance, Estúdio Gole studied the local market and international references for real points of difference, steering clear of the easy traps on either side – a dated look or a wholesale East Asian aesthetic on one hand, the standard London steakhouse on the other. “The principle was always to balance these two worlds in a way that would have a harmonious and disruptive marriage at the same time,” Miranda notes.
“We brought aspects that connect the two cultures in a non-obvious way,” Miranda adds. That produced a visual system built on contrast: East Asian textures and gestures, reinterpreted in a contemporary language, set against a cleaner, more structured approach that reinforces the restaurant’s positioning.
The system is at its sharpest in the wordmark, which sets CÔT in a high-contrast serif. “The idea of the logo is to have this high contrast like a knife; we made the logo thinking about this idea of cutting, and the name itself recalls this abrupt cut, ‘Corte’ in Portuguese,” Miranda details. “The logo font comes from the ABC Arizona Sans structure, and in this case, we stylised it completely to convey the idea of the cut and knife,” he continues. The circumflex over the ‘O’ earns its place too. “The accent is there to give a better intonation to the pronunciation of the name, so it was something more functional than artistic,” he explains.
Across the rest of the identity, the studio uses ABC Arizona Mix, Dinamo’s more serifed cut, alongside Xanh Mono, Yellow Type’s monospace. The aim, Miranda reveals, was “to create a more visually noisy character, reminiscent of vintage writing and bringing a welcome ‘dirtiness’ to the project.”
The Eastern side of that contrast is visible in the illustration through a family of beef cuts the studio drew in the manner of East Asian woodblock prints. “We prioritised papers that responded very well to this style; any texture is very welcome in this language,” Miranda recalls. The system also takes in a set of small symbols. “The glyphs in Japanese mean fire and flame, and we brought in the ox as a variation related to food and a strong symbol for the brand,” Miranda observes.
The palette is set to six colours. “We chose more earthy tones and not so vibrant ones; we wanted something that would match the restaurant’s architecture and have a very intimate feel to its palette,” Miranda concludes.
All images © of their respective owners.
Content taken from Côt Parrilla
