Ekaa: Restaurant Branding and Menu Design
Celebrating Ekaa’s place in Condé Nast Traveller x District’s Top 50, we brought its ingredient-led storytelling to life through illustrated menus, a refreshed palette and gold details.
A visual tribute that carries Ekaa’s ingredient-led storytelling from the menu to the table.
A Restaurant Led by Curiosity
Ekaa builds its menus around ingredients rather than the rules of a single cuisine. Its food draws on place, memory and technique, with explorations stretching from Mayurbhanj in Odisha to Nagaland.
When Ekaa was named No. 34 in Condé Nast Traveller x District’s 2026 Top 50 Restaurants in India, Ryze created a self-initiated rebranding tribute to celebrate that spirit. We wanted to see how Ekaa’s way of telling stories through food could extend across the visual experience of dining.
Designing for a Story That Keeps Evolving
Ekaa’s identity has to make room for changing menus, ingredients and influences. Our challenge was to create a recognisable visual language with enough range to follow those changes.
We looked beyond the logo to the moments surrounding a meal: opening the menu, noticing an illustration, setting down a glass and seeing a final detail as you leave. Each touchpoint offered another place for the story to unfold.
One Mark, Many Expressions
The identity centres on a gold emblem made from fine lines radiating from one point. For us, it became a visual expression of Ekaa’s belief that a single ingredient can hold many possibilities. Its embossed treatment adds depth to the burgundy surface, giving the mark a tactile presence.
We gently shifted the palette toward deep burgundy and forest green, balanced with warm ivory and gold. This was Ryze’s preferred direction for the tribute. Editorial typography gives the menus a composed, expressive feel, while the colours and mark connect the different applications.
The illustration system grew from pattern studies and hand sketches. Fish, prawns, shellfish, crab, flowers and flowing lines became details we could scale, repeat and combine. Ekaa’s journeys through India informed the project’s sense of exploration; the seafood drawings form a distinct coastal chapter within our visual interpretation.
Bringing the Identity to the Table
The menu was the starting point. Burgundy covers carry the gold mark and illustrated fish, while warm ivory pages give the food room to speak. Across the designs, detailed drawings invite a closer look before the first course arrives.
We extended the identity to burgundy and cream plate rims, a set of seafood coasters, a green service cloth, a chef’s apron and carry bags. The mark remains consistent, while each object has its own role in the experience. A separate Art of Coastal Dining treatment brings the illustrated fish and table setting together as one focused chapter.
The drinks table mattered too. Ekaa’s approach to beverages treats flavour as another way to carry memory and place. The illustrated coasters and service cloth let that part of the experience share in the visual story.
An Identity That Unfolds in the Details
The finished tribute brings the work together as a restaurant branding system, from the first sketches to the menu and the objects around it. The gold mark gives the identity a centre. The illustrations give it room to travel.
Most of all, we wanted the design to reward attention in the same way Ekaa’s food does. A drawing noticed on a menu appears again beside a glass. A colour seen on the plate returns on an apron or bag. Each detail invites guests to look a little closer.
Have a hospitality brand with a story worth telling? Let’s create what’s next together.
