Ingleside
Terris built Ingleside's digital presence from the ground up using Next.js and a headless WordPress CMS, creating a dark, atmospheric 9-page website that captures the Michelin Guide 2025 restaurant's three pillars of woodfire cooking, dry-ageing, and house-made fermentation. The site features founder profiles for Chef Louis Chan and fermentation specialist Jana, downloadable dinner and lunch menus, an events section, and integrated reservation flow, all wrapped in a moody copper-and-black design that mirrors the restaurant's candlelit dining atmosphere.
Project Details
- Client
- Ingleside
- Industry
- Fine Dining
- Duration
- 4 weeks
- Date
- March 2026
- Services
- Web DesignWeb Development
- Technologies
- Next.jsWordPress (Headless)Tailwind CSSTypeScript
What They Were Facing
Ingleside, a Michelin Guide 2025 wood fire and fermentation restaurant at 49 Tras Street, needed a website that matched the calibre of their dining experience. Their existing site was outdated, difficult to update without developer involvement, and failed to deliver a compelling experience for mobile users searching for fine dining options on the go.
Outdated Website Undermining Michelin-Level Positioning
Despite earning a Michelin Guide 2025 listing and building a reputation around the artisanal craftsmanship of woodfire cooking, dry-ageing, and in-house fermentation, Ingleside's existing website failed to convey the atmosphere and sophistication of the dining experience. The design was dated and generic, doing nothing to differentiate a restaurant whose philosophy centres on "fire's elemental power" and "fermentation as both science and art."
Content Management Bottleneck
With seasonal menus, rotating events, and evolving content across 3 menu types (Dinner A La Carte, Dinner Tasting Menu, and Lunch Set Menu), Ingleside needed the ability to update their website without developer intervention. Their existing setup required a developer for every menu change and event update, creating delays that left the site perpetually out of date.
Poor Mobile Experience for On-the-Go Diners
A significant portion of fine dining reservations come from mobile searches, yet Ingleside's previous site was not optimised for mobile devices. Navigation was clunky, images didn't scale properly, and the reservation flow was buried, meaning potential guests searching for fine dining near Tras Street on their phones were bouncing before booking.
How We Solved It
We built Ingleside's website from scratch using Next.js with a headless WordPress CMS, combining blazing-fast performance with an intuitive content management experience that empowers the restaurant team to manage their own menus and events.
Dark, Atmospheric Design Capturing the Dining Experience
Crafted a moody, near-black design with warm copper and amber accents that mirrors Ingleside's candlelit interior. The full-viewport hero carousel cycles through 3 atmospheric photographs of the restaurant interior, bar counter with curated spirits shelf, and beautifully plated dishes. Custom calligraphic script typography (Photograph Signature font) renders the three pillar headings "Woodfire," "Dry-aging," and "Fermentation" with an artisanal, hand-crafted feel, while Manrope provides clean readability for body text.
Headless WordPress CMS with Next.js Frontend
Decoupled WordPress from its traditional frontend, using it purely as a content management system while Next.js handles the presentation layer. This gives Ingleside's team a familiar WordPress admin interface to update their 3 menu types (Dinner A La Carte, Dinner Tasting Menu, Lunch Set Menu), manage events listings, publish media coverage, and edit founder bios without touching code or waiting for a developer.
9-Page Content Architecture with Rich Storytelling
Designed a comprehensive site structure spanning Home, About (Our Founders, Fermentation Lab), Menu (3 menu types with downloadable PDFs), Media, Events, and Reservation pages. The Our Founders page features rich biographical storytelling for Chef Louis Chan and fermentation specialist Jana (NUS Food Science graduate), while the three-column homepage section showcases their philosophy that "every menu is a reflection of our philosophy, rooted in wood fire, time, and fermentation."
Mobile-First Reservation Flow
Built a fully responsive design that prioritises the reservation journey on mobile devices. The mobile layout features a persistent "RESERVATION" CTA button immediately below the hero, a clean hamburger navigation revealing the full site structure including About, Menu, Media, and Events sections, and touch-optimised carousel controls. The three-column desktop layout for Woodfire, Dry-aging, and Fermentation pillars gracefully stacks vertically on mobile with full-width photography.
See the Website in Action
The Transformation
With their new website live, Ingleside now has a digital presence that matches their Michelin Guide 2025 dining experience. The restaurant team can independently manage menus, events, and content through the familiar WordPress admin, while guests enjoy a fast, atmospheric browsing experience on any device.
Page Load Time
5.2s
1.5s
PageSpeed Score
45/100
98/100
Mobile Experience
Not optimised
Fully responsive
Content Updates
Developer required
Self-service via WordPress CMS
Reservation Enquiries
Baseline
3x increase
How We Got There
4 phases from kickoff to launch.
Discovery & Planning
3 daysReviewed Ingleside's brand identity, Michelin positioning, and content requirements. Mapped the 9-page site structure and planned the headless WordPress architecture.
Design & Prototyping
1 weekDesigned the dark atmospheric aesthetic with copper accents, selected the Photograph Signature and Manrope typography pairing, and created responsive layouts for all pages.
Development & CMS Integration
2 weeksBuilt the Next.js frontend with Tailwind CSS, configured headless WordPress with custom content types for menus, events, and media, and integrated the reservation system.
Testing & Launch
3 daysCross-browser and device testing, performance optimisation achieving a 98 PageSpeed score, CMS training for the Ingleside team, and production deployment.
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