02-03. The cellar and the room: the two pages the old site never had.
04-05. The restaurant's own photography, restored and put to work.
Case study · No. 12
A Kew institution since 1988, given a site that finally smells of charcoal.
Charcoal Grill on the Hill has grilled over live charcoal on High Street, Kew since 1988. Dry-aged cuts selected by the chef, a wine list that runs to Sauternes verticals, a dining room of dark-red walls, and a following that fills a hundred seats. Online, all of that lived in a single WordPress page on a free 2018 theme: a photo slider, no menu, no copy, no way to book except the phone.
The commission: build the restaurant a presence equal to the room, and replace phone-only bookings with an engine the house owns outright, so it never pays per-cover fees to a reservations platform.
01 · The material. The restaurant's own professional photography (chef at the grill, the sommelier in the cellar, the famous Wagyu-trim cevapi over coals) was recovered, restored, and made the spine of the site. Nothing stock; the grill photographs itself.
02 · The pages. Home, menu, house, and cellar. The menu page carries the real card, priced: the aged cuts, the marble scores, the dessert list. The cellar page treats the wine list as the co-owner treats it: seriously.
03 · The hero. A full-bleed 1080p cinematic sizzle film opens the site: steak over live charcoal, slow and close. Generated image-first from the restaurant's own photography, so the motion belongs to this grill, not a stock library.
04 · The booking engine. A custom system built on the restaurant's real service pattern: 15-minute slots, real hours honoured (lunch Thursday and Friday only, closed Sundays), party size and requests captured up front. This engine later became the first deployment of Tavola, the studio's restaurant platform.
02-03. The cellar and the room: the two pages the old site never had.
04-05. The restaurant's own photography, restored and put to work.
The full build (four pages, the sizzle hero, and the working booking engine) was delivered as a preview in July 2026 and is with the restaurant now. The booking engine has already outgrown the commission: it became the founding deployment of Tavola, the studio's reservations and guest platform.
The first 30 days are still being measured. We'll publish the numbers when they're real.
From the atelier
A restaurant that ages its own beef and cellars Sauternes verticals should not book tables through a 2018 photo slider. We built the site the room deserved, and a booking engine the house owns: no per-cover fees, ever.
Luigi Turco, Maison Turco
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