Rumi' Kitchen

Rumi's Kitchen is the premiere location for Persian Cuisine. Located on Mount Vernon SquareI in Washington DC, the restaurant homages the 13th century Persian poet, and fresh, healthy food, attentive Persian hospitality, and an atmosphere filled with love.

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Grahame was commissioned by The Johnson Studio to create beautiful interiors to reflect these values. They decided upon ruined and rustic plaster walls, with a bas relief feature wall depicting ancient whirling dervish dancers. 

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Together with his team, Grahame created this stunning feature wall. The designs were carved out of the plaster revealing the venerable brickwork beneath. He penetrates through layers of plaster to set free the poetic images hidden beneath. A typical Grahame rendering originates in a sketchbook, before it is digitized on a computer. He broke the dervish portraits into three colors, and these colors help provide depth – similar to a stencil. 

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Finally, Grahame began the carving process with chisels, hammers and other tools. These tools allowed him to create incredible and truly poetic portraits. This entire process is very symbolical and Grahame takes it as a semi-archaeological dissection of layers of history and culture. He divides the carvings into layers of images and then begins by destroying to create, believing that destruction is a form of construction.