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Location: Washington DC, United States

Architect/Interior Designer: Drummond Projects

Construction: Drummond Projects

Photography: Kate Wichlinski and Arseni Khamzin

Housed within a three-story, 3,720-square-foot brick building, Top Chef Eric Adjepong’s first brick-and-mortar restaurant, ELMINA, was conceived and brought to life by the interior design firm Drummond Projects. The project embodies an experiential and culinary spirit that reflects Adjepong’s Ghanaian heritage while translating complex histories into a contemporary design narrative.

ELMINA takes its name from the Ghanaian fishing port that became the site of the first European slave-trading post in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing from this history, Drummond Projects developed a concept that honours the prized commodities of the transatlantic slave trade, tobacco, indigo, metal, sugar cane, cotton, and wood – each expressed through six distinct spatial programs.

The upstairs dining room, enveloped in deep indigo, evokes the vast seas once crossed by enslaved peoples. The mezzanine’s metal accents recall the identification tags imposed upon them, while the cocktail lounge, wrapped in burnt reds, alludes to tobacco. A verdant terrace references sugar cane, the soft light tones of the ground-floor dining area represent cotton, and the wooden finishes of the lower-level washrooms recall the transatlantic ships that carried both people and goods.

For Drummond Projects, the design of ELMINA succeeds because it transforms history into a living, immersive experience where architecture, memory, and storytelling intersect. The restaurant becomes both a space for celebration and reflection, embodying modern Africa while acknowledging its past. Integrating with its urban context through its brick façade and human-scaled massing, ELMINA extends Drummond Projects’ mission to create environments of belonging and resilience, fostering a dialogue between past and present that feels both rooted and relevant.