Restaurants like Sexy Fish making headlines with their impressive fish tank displays, and since good restaurant and bar design has a habit of filtering down into the way we want to decorate our homes, style-conscious homeowners are starting to embrace the trend. The Resident checks out the how and why of London’s emerging trend for designer indoor aquariums…
WORDS: Kara O’Reilly
So, it looks like the statement fish tank is having a bit of a renaissance. All those column inches devoted to the opening of Sexy Fish on Berkeley Street, restaurant magnate Richard Caring’s latest venture, mention without fail the two live coral reef designer aquariums in the private dining room.
It takes me back to the heady days of Britpop when the Editor I then worked under was obsessed with the rather huge fish tank in Supernova Heights, the HQ and home of Britpop royalty, Noel Gallagher and Meg Mathews.
Now I know aquariums aren’t for everyone, but behind all the bling – after all, these kinds of tanks are as beloved of Premier League footballers and oligarchs as they are of the pop star classes – I can see their appeal.
There is something soothing to the soul about watching fish swimming round and round in a beautifully curated back-lit tank of water, and, obviously, the bigger the aquarium, the more space for the little critters, which makes keeping them as pets seem kinder (yes, I did watch Finding Nemo too many times when my kids were small).
The Sexy Fish aquariums are a feature added by Martin Brudnizki, the interior designer who seems to have stepped into the shoes of the late, great David Collins as the go-to guy for slick, sexy restaurant design
The Sexy Fish aquariums are a feature added by Martin Brudnizki, the interior designer who seems to have stepped into the shoes of the late, great David Collins as the go-to guy for slick, sexy restaurant, club and hotel design. His is the glamorous vision that has shaped many of London’s most enjoyable spaces to while away a leisurely lunch or evening, including Hix, The Ivy, Dean Street Townhouse, Les Deux Salons and, to obliquely come back to our topic in hand, J Sheekey Oyster Bar.
And don’t think I am going somewhat off-piste here – good restaurant and bar design has a habit of filtering down into the way we want to decorate our homes, whether that’s by installing the neo-industrial tap fittings of The Riding House Café, buying the Lee Broom decanter lights in Kitty Fisher’s, or simply copying the way pictures are hung ceiling-to-floor in Berners Tavern.
If you are yet to be treated to a private dinner at Sexy Fish to admire those aquariums in the flesh, then assuage your hankerings for a swank tank by heading over to Aquarium Architecture
So, if like me, you are yet to be treated to a private dinner at Sexy Fish in order to admire those aquariums in the flesh, then assuage your hankerings for a swank tank by heading over to Aquarium Architecture, one of London’s foremost suppliers of custom-made aquariums to the cognoscenti, or check out the Aquatic Design Centre – which was recently name-checked in Vogue, no less. It’s quite possibly worth your while to have a little chat about what one of their rather stunning designer aquariums could bring to your home.
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