Canada Goose

In 2023, we were approached by celebrity chef, Katie Button, to help work through a core branding issues that Katie Button Restaurants (KBR) was experiencing as a direct result of their immense success. KBR’s flagship restaurant, Cúrate, had just been awarded a James Beard Award, and Katie’s personal career was taking off. She had her own a television show on the Magnolia Network, she was making prestigious appearances, and she was receiving numerous press accolades.

Cúrate’s founders (and husband-wife duo), Katie Button and Felix Meana, first met in the kitchen of famed Spanish-American chef, José Andrés’ restaurant, Café Atlántico. That’s where Katie kickstarted her culinary career, eventually making her way to El Bulli, where she mentored under world-renown chef, Ferran Adrià, and to the Michelin-star restaurants, Jean-Georges in NYC and The Bazaar in LA. A native of Roses, Spain, Felix also worked at El Bulli, running its front of house before helping Chef José Andrés open and manage his restaurants across America.

Katie and Felix shared a dream of stirring Spanish influences into the food culture of their chosen hometown, Asheville, North Carolina. In 2011, they brought that dream to life by introducing Asheville to its first all-Spanish restaurant, Cúrate Bar de Tapas.

The Cúrate name has grown alongside the city’s tourism boom and increasing preference for farm-to-table, freerange, organic cuisine. The restaurant's incredible, authentic experience of Spanish food and its ties to Chef Katie Button. But Cúrate is so much more than that. It's a family of brands — all with unique personalities and expressions of Spain. We needed to sew a common thread through everything that Katie and Felix created, specifically Cúrate, their second restaurant (La Bodega), their Spanish wine club, their trips business, and their shop-from-home eCommerce site.

Thus, we set out to define these relationships through a brand analysis, strategy and core visual branding elements. The resulting work has been transformative for KBR and even helped rethink their leadership structure.