The food-design restaurant

By Neehar Mishra

Photography: Alfonso Calza; courtesy ggarchitects

Read Time: 2 mins

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Chef Quique Dacosta’s latest project provides a dining experience that is as riveting as it gets!

Restaurants with open kitchens have been around for many decades, providing customers with a unique dining experience, where they get to enjoy not just their food but also the process that goes into preparing it. Taking immersive dining to the next level is Chef Quique Dacosta’s ambitious project in Alicante, Spain, wherein he opens the creative studio of three of his Michelin-star restaurants to the guests.

Collaboration between Quique Dacosta food design lab and ggarchitects, the project allows guests to enjoy their meals in the studio itself, thus blurring the boundary between gastronomy and design.

Central Krion table

With a view to seamlessly integrate space, function and aesthetics, the entire concept revolves around three key elements. The first is a central Krion table with a sleek design, which is functional in terms of being both - the restaurant’s creative station and a dining table.

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Versatile Ceiling

The second, the ceiling, is not just that but also a self-contained unit from where all technological controls are exercised, such as the extractor hood, conditioning system, lighting and sound.

Pandora's Box!

Complete play on camouflage principles of design

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Finally and most intriguingly, the entire setup is nestled within a combination of cabinet doors and walls with the cabinets housing the technology and the walls doubling up as doors to keep it hidden. As you enjoy your meal, the ambience keeps evolving as the door-wall folds and contracts around you, keeping the technology hidden, when it is closed and the doors disappearing completely, when open.

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While the mirrored rear wall enhances the illusion of space, the lateral walls are a topographic cross section that creates a continuous landscape with the ceiling.

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By blending the areas, where research and preparation of the food takes place and, where it is finally relished, the project also facilitates interaction between the guests and Chef Dacosta, thus giving a whole new spin to the experience of dining.