Skinny Dip

GF Culinary is one of the most established F&B groups operating in Indonesia. The portfolio runs deep: Fish&Co, Butler's Steak, Song Fa Bak Kut Teh, Marutama Ramen, Putien, Crystal Jade, and more. The group has been building and operating restaurant brands in Indonesia for decades, and its track record in the market is about as credible as it gets. When GF Culinary decides to launch a new concept, it is not doing it casually.

Skinny Dip is a French-style bistro and elevated sandwich and brunch spot, built around a specific dining concept where every sandwich is paired with a signature dipping sauce. Guests can select the bread, the protein, and the sauce to build their ideal dip. The concept sits at Chillax Sudirman, the alfresco lifestyle destination on Jl. Jenderal Sudirman that draws office workers, creatives, and weekend diners from across South and Central Jakarta. The restaurant holds a 4.8 rating with over 741 reviews, which for a dining concept in a competitive location says something real about whether the product is landing.

The brand is a premium one. Premium price, premium interior, a premium address. Everything about Skinny Dip is positioned to sit above the average Jakarta lunch option, and the brand identity had to carry that positioning from the first touchpoint.

Skinny Dip launched as a completely new brand with no identity at all. For a premium F&B concept under a group as experienced as GF Culinary, getting the visual identity right from day one is not negotiable. The brand would be competing for attention in Chillax alongside other strong concepts including TOMA Brasserie and Butler's Steak, all of which had their own visual language and physical presence. A new entrant without a clear, considered identity would simply not hold its own in that environment.

The brief had a clear direction already embedded in the concept: elevated, French-inspired, premium. Chillax's European-American architectural character set an environmental context that the Skinny Dip identity needed to sit inside without disappearing. The interior itself was built by Metaphor and Ikons, sister brands of Modulo, which meant the physical space was already being designed with intention and craft. The brand identity had to belong in that space.

The menu format was also part of the brief, and it was the most distinctive single design decision in the entire project. A menu for a sit-down dining concept is one of the highest-contact brand touchpoints a restaurant has. Every guest handles it before they order. It sets the tone for the meal before the food arrives.

Arterie built the complete brand identity for Skinny Dip: logo, color palette, supergraphic system, and the full collateral range.

The color direction landed on black and gold. This is not an obvious choice for a brunch and sandwich concept, categories that more commonly lean into warm naturals, pastels, or casual approachability. But Skinny Dip is not a casual sandwich brand. The dipping format, the French bistro positioning, the Chillax address, and the GF Culinary backing all point toward something that earns a more premium visual register. Black and gold delivers that. It reads as confident and considered, and it aligns with the interior that Metaphor and Ikons built without competing with it for attention.

The supergraphic system gave the brand flexibility to show up beyond the logo, across packaging, collaterals, and surface applications inside the space. For a restaurant brand, visual system depth matters more than for a product brand because the guest spends time inside the brand, not just interacting with it briefly at point of purchase.

The menu design is where the brief produced its most memorable outcome. Rather than a standard bound or laminated menu card, Skinny Dip guests are presented with an A2 newspaper-format menu, folded and handed to the table on arrival. The format is unexpected for a restaurant at this positioning, and unexpected is exactly the right word for it. A broadsheet menu in black and gold carries a sense of occasion. It is tactile, it takes up space on the table, and it creates a moment when it is opened. For a brand built on a novel dining concept, the menu format reinforces the message that this experience is doing something different.

A complete brand identity for a premium French-style bistro brand in Jakarta, built from nothing and used actively at Chillax Sudirman today. The black and gold palette, the supergraphic system, and the A2 newspaper menu format all work together as a coherent brand experience that holds up inside an interior designed by some of the best spatial design practices in the country.

For F&B brands in Indonesia looking for a branding agency in Jakarta that can handle a new restaurant concept from identity through to collateral design, this project covers the full range. The identity is still running in one of Jakarta's most visible dining destinations, which is the measure that matters most.