Moving away from the cliché: a unique F&B experience at Hilton Metropole NEC Birmingham

Leading global strategic brand, architecture and design consultancy, Harrison, is renowned for creating engaging brands and crafting rich stories to bring strategy, interiors, architecture, packaging and digital worlds to life. The team was recently tasked with developing all the F&B offerings at the Hilton Metropole, neighbouring the Birmingham NEC. This is the UK’s largest hotel outside London, and the country’s biggest conference hotel. This brings the complexity of needing a varied set of F&B offers to keep visitors and guests engaged throughout all day parts and usage occasions. The challenge is doing this in a relevant and congruent way – and demonstrates how narrative building can create a joined-up portfolio of offers. The overarching narrative in this case was built around celebrating a city full of exciting contrasts – each offer focusing on a different facet or story of the metropolis. Harrison’s motivation was to move away from the cliché of Birmingham – ‘cars and concrete’ – and reveal some of the many hidden stories from the exciting and emerging city that boasts Europe’s youngest populace.

The customer journey starts with Gild – a quick service offer which celebrates the contrast in traditional and contemporary crafts in the ‘city of 1000 trades’ – using techniques and materials that reference the area’s ongoing reputation as a centre of jewellery, ceramic and product design.
A change of pace is created as you enter the hotel’s buffet zone – The Arbor – a moment of tranquility amidst the buzz of the events hub, inspired by the famous Birmingham Botanical Gardens, which is in unique contrast to the city’s grime and brutalist architecture. The concept gives license to tell the stories of the botanical garden’s history – from its unique fern found nowhere else in the world, to Gladly ‘the cross eyed bear’ – a once famous local inhabitant of the garden’s menagerie.

The final space is where the party starts – Brightsmith on the Water, a destination bar/restaurant which celebrates the contrast between the city’s burgeoning industrial heart, and the wealthy industrialists whose riches built Birmingham’s elegant terracotta city centre. Brightsmith marries both worlds, blending the aesthetic of the factory floor through the English industrial term ‘smith’ with the elegance of chandeliers, brass, sparkle and plush seating.

Harrison is also working on the member only Executive Lounge which will open in Spring 2022.

Nathan Stevenson, Senior Interior Designer at Harrison, comments; “Each area celebrates a unique facet of Birmingham’s identity, inspired by the contrasts of the city to create a series of dynamic spaces and narratives, which not only tell the story of the city’s industrial past, but also bringing the city’s youthful reinvention to a wider audience of visitors.”