Tombo Den, Windsor
- Location
- Windsor
- Typology
- Hospitality — restaurant and sake bar
- Surface
- Microcement
- Finish
- Textured
- Completed
- Designer
- DKO
- Builder
- Directitude
Photography — Tom Blachford
Textured microcement on the facade and bathroom walls of Tombo Den, Lucas Restaurants' Japanese restaurant and sake bar on Chapel Street, designed by DKO.
The brief —
Tombo Den is a two-storey Japanese restaurant and sake bar by Lucas Restaurants at the Windsor end of Chapel Street, designed by DKO and built by Directitude. DKO drew on brutalism and the late-night gambling dens of 1990s Tokyo, with a narrow, partly concealed street frontage. The facade and the bathroom walls needed a raw, concrete-like texture that would hold up to Chapel Street and a busy late-night venue.
The surface —
A textured microcement was applied by hand to the street facade and to the bathroom walls, giving both a continuous, concrete-like surface without joints.
The result —
On the street, the textured facade gives the narrow frontage its heavy, brutalist character. Inside, the same texture carries into the bathrooms. The project was shortlisted for hospitality design at the 2025 IDEA awards and for Best Restaurant Design at the 2025 Eat Drink Design Awards.
