For Arlin we designed and built the website of an Aegean restaurant on the Overtoom: rakı, wine, coastal seafood and meze, brought to Amsterdam.
The site had to feel like the evening itself: a long table, a cold bottle and small plates that keep arriving. It sets that mood from the first screen and makes reserving a table the obvious next step.
Deep wine red, warm candlelight photography and a serif that takes its time: the design borrows its pace from the Aegean coast, where no one hurries a meal.
The dishes get room to speak for themselves, one plate after another. The menu changes often, so it lives as a download instead of a page that is out of date by the weekend.
One page that takes a guest from first impression to a reserved table, with the kitchen, the dishes and the address on the Overtoom along the way.
On a phone a reservation button returns in every part of the page, because that is where most guests decide where to eat tonight.
A refreshed identity and a hand-built one-page site, ready for online reservations.
The wordmark redrawn and animated, a new palette and typography, an underwater hero scene, a dish showcase that scrolls sideways, a designed menu section, map and directions, Restaurant structured data and strict security settings, on a page a fraction of the old one’s weight.
The old site loaded 1.4 MB before a guest had scrolled.
Down from 209 on the old site.
No analytics and no ad pixels: the page loads the restaurant and nothing else.
