L'Hirondelle Restaurant

Web DevelopmentFront-End Development

Haitian + Caribbean kitchen on Central Ave, Orange NJ. Cobalt + saffron + earth red travel-poster aesthetic. Horizontal-scroll plates carousel signature.

Next.js 16MotionTailwind v4

Overview

L'Hirondelle is a Haitian + Caribbean restaurant on Central Avenue, Orange NJ. The site reads as travel poster meets street market — cobalt + saffron + earth red + mint, sun-ray fan rising behind the headline, drifting postage-stamp luggage-tag elements layered over a chalk-cream background. Signature layout grammar: a 10-plate menu rendered as a horizontal-scroll snap carousel that runs sideways across the entire viewport, instead of stacking vertically. Anton condensed display + Caveat script for the French-Creole subtitles.

Features

Horizontal-scroll plates carousel (snap-scroll, 10 cards)
Sun-ray conic gradient backdrop
Drifting travel-stamp luggage tags
Stamp-edge dotted hr borders
French-Creole script subtitles via Caveat

Technologies Used

Next.js 16
React 19
Tailwind CSS v4
Motion
Lenis
Anton + Inter + Caveat

Challenges & Solutions

Challenges

Capturing Caribbean joy without lapsing into tourist clichés
Building a sideways-scroll layout that still works on mobile

Solutions

Drew from Haitian street-market signage rather than postcards
Snap-scroll with momentum + visible scrollbar so the affordance reads