Social Dining
Interior Design
Bars & Clubs
Commercial Interior Design
For Dhillon’s Brewery Group, we set out to reimagine the food hall as something warmer and more personal: a multi-floor social dining venue in Coventry designed for lingering, not just eating.
Elle’s is the latest venture from the Dhillon’s Brewery Group, a network of Coventry bars and venues built around the visitor experience. The goal was to elevate the typical food hall format and move away from the cold, loud, high-turnover atmosphere that usually defines the category.
The brief called for a flexible, versatile space that could host events and everyday dining alike, with a logical flow between the bar and kitchen areas so visitors could shape their own experience from the moment they arrived. Above all, it needed to feel like a genuine community meeting place — somewhere people would want to pull up a chair and stay a while.
Elle’s needed to work as a multi-use space that evolves throughout the day, spanning several floors with distinct pockets and zones. Large groups needed room to spread out, while solo diners, couples and remote workers needed quieter corners of their own, so that every visit could feel a little different.
Food halls are increasingly common across the UK, but the templated approach often leaves them feeling impersonal, with guests only made to feel welcome for the length of their meal. With Elle’s, the ambition was to create somewhere that felt like an extension of home rather than a transactional stop.
Black Ivy Design’s existing relationship with Dhillon’s Brewery Group made us the natural choice for this new venture. Elle’s marks a deliberate departure from the brewery’s existing offering, giving Coventry something genuinely new in the social dining space.
Dhillon’s shares our commitment to building hospitality experiences with a distinct point of view, and together the aim was to set a new benchmark for what a food hall in the city could feel like — cosy, considered and community-minded.
Elle’s is bathed in soft light green with warm peach accents, giving it a calm, minimalist character that subverts expectations of the typical British food hall. Simple opal globe wall lights and oversized pendants reinforce that pared-back mood, paired with bold, oversized terrazzo tiling for texture and scale.
Local photographers, graphic designers and fine artists contributed an eclectic mix of artwork throughout the space, giving Coventry creatives a platform to raise their profile while keeping the venue firmly rooted in its community.
