When we decided to open Little Seeds in 2016, we gave ourselves two weeks from collecting the keys to serving our first customers. There was a lot that we needed to do in an incredibly short space of time: the interior needed to be completely redecorated, we knocked through a wall to create the first floor bar, we made new tables and chairs in keeping with our brand, we hired new staff and designed a brand new menu from scratch.
Looking back, we are immensely proud of what we achieved. We set out to create a friendly dining experience with food that took inspiration from the local landscape, with a menu based around the seasons and ingredients that supported local producers and farming community – things that are very important to our values and the type of business we wanted to be. Some of that happened over time and there are certainly things we would have done differently (artificial turf seemed like a great idea at the time!), but by and large, we turned a spark of an idea into something very real.
Fast forward three years and we felt it was time for a change. Project Little Seeds 2.0 came about because we wanted to show the growth and organic evolution since opening. From humble beginnings as a casual all-day dining place serving homely food, to a restaurant focused on produce-driven seasonal dining. The menu has evolved as the business has grown and we’re at a point where we want to offer a more refined dining experience to our guests. We wanted to bring the ambience of the restaurant in line with the style of food that we create, the service that our team provides, and the ethos that our business was founded on.
We didn’t just want to change the paint though. Our new menu adopts a minimalist approach to draw emphasis to the ingredients and this is a theme we wanted to carry through to other parts of the business. We started by rebranding our website and menus to make them cleaner and clearer. We also introduced a new colour scheme of natural green and smoky white, colours inspired by nature and our kitchen garden. No one knows our business better than us so we decided to take control of the rebranding process to make it as personal as possible - what you see is the restaurant we’ve always wanted to create.
We’re really excited for this next stage in our business and can’t wait to see where it leads!
Words (C) 2019, Little Seeds. Photos (C) 2019, Matthew Owen.