Arena - Rustic 180mm 1-Strip

The 80-strong UK casual dining chain Bella Italia is currently undergoing a complete makeover nationwide, with fun, colour and Mediterranean style being the design criteria. 

The famous landscape artist Alfred Heaton Cooper first established a studio in Ambleside in 1905, with a gallery being built on the current site in 1938. Now four generations of artists who have typified Lake District landscapes are represented in this recently refurbished space devoted to presenting world-leading mountain art.  

In 1991 Eren Ali, a successful industrial designer bought a restaurant on a Bristol back street that had failed no fewer than seven times in the previous decade, and from here he launched the very first Las Iguanas. So what made this new venture such a success? Ali puts it down, not to the food, but to the design. Of course, this is a later incarnation, mixing three different woods on the floor in what had become something of a Las Iguanas signature style.

Las Iguanas is a successful casual dining restaurant chain with a Latin American theme. It was the first of its kind to specialise in upscale and authentic food from Brazil, Mexico and beyond, cooked from scratch, but in Las Iguanas the decor is as important as the food. Havwoods' legend has it that a pair of talented carpenters were presented with our Quadro, Arena and Blanco planks in this restaurant and told to create an interesting floor.

The Las Iguanas casual dining chain brings Latin American energy to our cool British shores, where any time is party time for the pre-family 24 - 35-year-olds with good disposable income who make up the chain’s core clientele. Design in this Kingston branch was entrusted to independent and branded hospitality specialists B3Designers, who specified the same trio of Havwoods’ Venture Plank products already used in a number of the South American eateries outlets.

Sydney based Architectus worked with Aspen Commerical Interiors to utilise perennial favourite HW963 Arena from our Venture Plank collection as decorative wall cladding in both plank and chevron style.