Scarfe's Bar

Scarfes Bar is the signature bar at the Rosewood London hotel on High Holborn, named after the celebrated British caricaturist Gerald Scarfe. One of London's most well-regarded hotel bar destinations, the space draws on a literary and artistic heritage that informs every element of its design, from the original Scarfe works on the walls to the richly crafted furniture and fittings throughout.

Make Bespoke Studio's partners contributed bespoke seating, bar joinery and decorative furniture pieces to this iconic space. Pieces were upholstered in rich velvets and leathers and finished in dark lacquer and aged brass, a material palette in keeping with the bar's warm, convivial character and its position within one of London's leading luxury hotel properties.

Working to a Martin Brudnizki brief, our manufacturing partner produced the bespoke lighting for Scarfe’s bar at Rosewood London, known as one of the most exciting places to drink and dine in London.

The hotel’s interiors draw on classic British design and culture so our partners were the natural choice for this stylish project. The bar features crafted globe chandeliers, some 2m high, hand-finished with a stunning verdigris effect. They are complemented by lamps with bronze bases and opal glass shades that add a further dimension to the wooden bar that runs the length of this convivial room.

A two-metre globe chandelier is the kind of fitting that cannot be specified from a catalogue. The brass armature was hand-cast, finished and assembled in panel form at the workshop, then dry-fitted as a full structure before being broken back down for delivery and re-built in the bar. The verdigris was applied by hand after assembly: copper acetate worked across the surface and stopped at the right point to read as quietly aged rather than freshly oxidised — a finish that has to be judged in the actual light of the room, not under workshop lighting.

The opal-shaded bronze bar lamps share the same workshop discipline at smaller scale: solid bronze bases turned and patinated by hand, opal-glass shades selected for diffusion behaviour, and electrical fit-out carried out in-house so each fitting could be tested at full output before installation. The set reads as a single lighting scheme rather than a collection of separate pieces — which is what a Martin Brudnizki brief at Rosewood London demands.