The Box Tree: a new digital chapter for one of Yorkshire’s most celebrated restaurants
A new website for a restaurant entering a new era
The Box Tree has been part of Yorkshire’s fine-dining landscape for decades, with a reputation built on heritage, service and a very particular sense of occasion.
With the restaurant undergoing a full refurbishment ahead of its relaunch on 9 September 2026, the existing website was ready for the same treatment.
The brief was to create something more refined and contemporary without losing the history and prestige already attached to the name.
Working from the team’s vision for strong imagery, confident typography and a restrained use of colour, I designed the new website in Figma before moving into a bespoke WordPress build. The finished site uses a gold and grey palette that sits naturally alongside the restaurant’s new menus and wider visual direction.
The
challenge
Modernising the experience without losing the heritage.
The old website had served the restaurant well, but it was beginning to show its age.
With the physical space being completely refreshed, the digital experience needed to catch up. The challenge was to make the site feel more modern, editorial and premium while still respecting the history and reputation behind The Box Tree.
That balance mattered most on mobile, where the experience needed to feel just as considered as desktop rather than simply becoming a stacked version of the same layout.
The team also wanted the site to remain deliberately focused. Rather than expand into dozens of pages, the structure was kept simple around the core journeys visitors actually need: discovering the restaurant, viewing menus, exploring imagery, purchasing gifts and making a booking.
Turning the restaurant’s vision into a digital experience
The Box Tree team came to the project with a clear sense of how they wanted the new website to feel: strong photography, confident type, elegant use of colour and plenty of breathing room.
My role was to translate that direction into a working digital design.
The website was first developed through Figma prototypes, allowing the team to review desktop and mobile layouts before the build began. That gave us a clear visual language to work from and made it easier to refine details quickly as menus, photography and content came together.
The final design uses a restrained gold and grey palette, large-format imagery and clean typography to create something that feels polished without becoming overdesigned.
Making key actions feel part of the site
Reservations are handled through OpenTable, but the booking journey was designed to feel more integrated than a simple external link.
I built a bespoke booking form that allows visitors to choose their preferred date, time and party size on The Box Tree website before passing those details into OpenTable. It keeps the first part of the journey within the restaurant’s own design and reduces the feeling of being abruptly sent elsewhere.
Gifting is powered through WooCommerce, giving the restaurant a flexible way to sell gift experiences online while keeping the visual treatment consistent with the rest of the site.
Both features sit naturally within the wider experience rather than feeling bolted on after the fact.
Giving the team more ownership of the website
One of the limitations of the old setup was restricted editing access.
The new bespoke WordPress theme gives the team far more control over content, imagery, menus and page sections while keeping the design consistent.
That means routine changes can be handled internally without needing a developer every time something small changes.
Alongside the visual rebuild, the site also received a full technical polish. SEO, accessibility and structured data were reviewed, and I implemented a bespoke caching approach to keep the site extremely fast despite the large imagery and premium visual treatment.
The result is a website that looks considered at the front end and is much easier to manage behind the scenes.
The
outcome
A digital experience ready for the restaurant’s next chapter.
The new website launched alongside The Box Tree’s September 2026 refurbishment, giving the restaurant a digital presence that better reflects where the business is now heading.
It feels more modern, more refined and far stronger on mobile, while still retaining the sense of history and prestige that makes The Box Tree distinctive.
The team now has greater control over the content, a more integrated booking journey, flexible gifting through WooCommerce and a technical foundation built around speed, accessibility and future growth.
The aim was never to reinvent The Box Tree.
It was to make sure the website finally felt as considered as the restaurant itself.
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