Recipe for design success

The interior at Croma – a family restaurant in Chorlton, Manchester – has been carefully crafted by the designer and renowned cartoonist, 84-year-old Enzo Apicella, who’s created a welcoming space with a lived-in feeling, even though it’s just been open a year.

Andrew Bullock, one of the founder directors, decided he wanted terracotta tiles and turned to Fired Earth for something that would satisfy Enzo and be sufficiently durable in a commercial environment.
 
“I’d no idea about where to source the tiles, but one day I happened to be driving past Fired Earth’s Warmington Mill store outside Peterborough in Cambridgeshire,” Andrew explains. “I decided to pop in and look around. I was very impressed by the store, the quality of the products and the experience as a whole. I met Carrie Richardson who works there as the Home Designer and she was very helpful.

“She introduced me to Fired Earth’s handmade terracotta, which really is a very special tile. Each tile is unique telling its own story: the fingerprints of the craftsman who made it are left on the tile as he smoothes them over prior to firing. Looking at them all laid together on the floor of our restaurant they form a wonderful pattern, providing an almost instant feeling of aged authenticity.”