Nurya.
From blank space to a brasserie with a beating heart.
Nurya started with a brief about food. It ended as a story about identity - about what it means to gather, to share, and to belong in a rapidly evolving Saudi Arabia.
Inspired by the ancient souks of Jeddah, where strangers became companions over shared bread and unhurried conversation, we built this brand from the ground up - name, narrative, and visual language - for Hilton's all-day dining concept in one of the region's most culturally layered cities.
The challenge wasn't designing a restaurant. It was distilling an entire way of being into something a guest could feel the moment they walked in.
Nurya is a modern brasserie that moves with the day. Breakfast arrives like a souk market stall coming to life - abundant, warm, communal - before elegantly transitioning into an Ă la carte evening experience anchored by a theatre kitchen, open flame, and the intoxicating aromas of charcoal and fresh bread.
The cuisine spans Levantine, Mediterranean, and Saudi - not as a fusion compromise, but as a celebration of the region's natural abundance. Dishes rooted in provenance. Flavours earned through craft.
We named her after the Arabic word for light. Because that's what the best tables offer - a place to be seen, to connect, to stay a little longer than you planned.
For the visual direction, we looked to the raw beauty of the land itself.
We developed a monogram with the quiet authority of a luxury house - think Loewe, think heritage - paired with hand-drawn etchings of fresh produce. Figs. Pomegranates. Herbs pulled from the soil. The kind of illustration that feels like it was carved, not printed.
The result is a brand that wears its values on its sleeve: generosity, craft, provenance, pride.
This wasn't decoration. It was a design language that could hold the full weight of the storytelling - the Saudi farmer, the spice bazaar, the grandmother's recipe, the forward-looking generation reclaiming its culinary roots.
What It Stands For
Nurya is also a cultural statement. It reflects a Saudi Arabia that is proud of its land - its harvests, its farmers, its ingredients - at a moment when that pride is becoming something new and powerful.
The brand sits at the intersection of modern refinement and artisanal tactility. Not nostalgic, not trend-chasing. Just deeply, honestly rooted.
The earthy colour palette, the handmade clay tableware, the live oud performances on weekends, the uniforms in sustainable earth tones - every layer was designed to reinforce the same feeling: you are somewhere that knows who it is.
The Outcome
A brand concept that works as hard at breakfast as it does at dinner. One that gives Hilton a genuine cultural anchor in Jeddah — not a generic hotel restaurant dressed up in local colour, but a brasserie with a real point of view and the identity to match.
Nurya isn't just a place to eat. It's where the journey begins.
