Matthew Slotover

So Sophie's...

this incredible artist so we asked her to do a wall wall painting somewhere she does these amazing wall works and we picked uh the staircase that goes down to the bar and she's like a whirlwind she did it in like half a day she you know she just went there and she just went like this and it's very margate because when you're at the bottom of the staircase and this could have really been a staircase you would just forget because it's it's actually quite a cramped staircase it's not like a glamorous one like you have in in maison estelle when you're walking up

Yeah, it's been a real pleasure because, I mean, we've commissioned artists a bit in the past, but they did projects for the magazine.

But it's always a bit tricky with artists.

You can't really say no to them.

It's not like designers where you're kind of commissioning them and you can say, no, I want it in a different colour or it's not really working.

Do you find that with the gallery?

You sort of have to believe them.

And if you give it to them, you have to kind of go with it.

And often, even if you don't like it,

You realize five years later, oh, they were right, actually, and I was wrong.

Like, I'm glad I didn't try and interfere because they knew better than me, you know, because they really thought about it.

So you've got to choose good people and just let them do it.

And that's what we did with Sophie.

But also in the restaurant now, we commission artists to the menu.

So every three months, we change the menu design, the menu, the wine list, the event menus.

They have to do three new works.

and it's a different artist every quarter.

That's been a huge pleasure and amazing.

The next one is Daniel Sinsel, and he's done... He actually made three new paintings just to be photographed for the many years.