CAL Gastrobar: custom made high temperature terracotta tiles for a restaurant

An integral renovation, a challenging starting point and many months of work is what lies beneath this project located in Santander, North of Spain, signed by the studio SanFernando. In downtow Santander was to open its doors CAL Gastrobar: a gastronomical enterprise that needed a space that reflected the restaurant’s concept. The studio tapped us on the shoulder to help with this task, and the result is a set of high temperature terracotta tiles, both custom made for the project and selected from our catalogue, that turn CAL Gastrobar into a unique place, on par with the food it serves.

This project had specific needs, so the solutions we brought to the table had to answer to those needs. SanFernando studio has used four different todobarro pieces. Two of them have been chosen from within our catalogue, and the other two were designed and made ex profeso for CAL Gastrobar.

From our selection, the studio chose the Cuadrado 11 and Rectángulo 22×11 pieces, and we’ve made three aditional ones: Octógono 8, Cuadrado 4,5 and Escama 11. We had versions of those formats in our catalogue, but we made adjustments to make them perfectly fit the project.

High temperature terracotta tiles for a restaurant, a winning combination

All of our projects are equally important, but this is the first time we fully clad a restaurant with high temperature terracotta tiles. It is such a wise choice for a restaurant, since the finish of this type of terracotta is more resistant, and is delivered with a protective treatment applied at the shop.

CAL Gastrobar is an open kitchen kind of restaurant: a concept that’s pretty common in North American stablishments but relatively new in South European ones (where it’s growing in popularity), where the kitchen of a bar or restaurant shares the space with the patrons, that can see how their food is prepared and plated for them.

All of our fired clay pieces are use resistant, but the extreme durability and endurance of high temperature terracotta makes of this kind of tiles the perfect choice for a intensive use environment, such as an open kitchen restaurant. The clay bricks shaped like fish scales cladding the columns fill the room with character and the tile pattern on the floor reminds us of the classic terracotta floors of antique houses.

All in all, the combination of our catalogue tiles and the ones we custom made for this project convey at first sight the notion behind the gastrobar: one that values things that are hand made, with attention to detail and great respect for artisanal work.