We love bakeries. And we especially love bakeries with a true sense of design and style. We have written about bakeries for almost two decades and we continue to look for fresh ideas.

In the Mi Pan Bakery project, we love the candid admission of the designers that they recognized they could not create a design that was too modern, too funky or too different as it might turn people away and intimidate tradition-loving customers who are not used to “designer” bakeries. Yet the designers also wanted to evoke a distinctive feeling of newness and freshness to update the image of the 40-year-old brand.

For four decades, Mi Pan has been a bakery for everyone, for young and old. It was important for the brand to remain an “everyone’s” bakery, to not appear snobbish or pretentious. And as bread is an integral part of many Mexican traditions and celebrations, it was important to continue the open-to-all and part-of-everyone’s-life brand values.

The work was completed by Concentrico, an interdisciplinary collaboration studio of architects and designers, based in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Monterrey, Mexcio. The studio is led by creative director Alejandro Peña Villarreal who was also the head architect of the Mi Pan project. Other key project leads were architects Ana Rebeca Mata and Jose Maria Cuevas and industrial designer May Cisneros.

To understand the project’s connection with the near and distant past of Mexico, the designers at Concentrico not only analyzed the history of the brand but also the visual and practical traditions and customs of Mexican bakeries in general.

As a result, the bakery’s promise “Siempre bueno masa a migaja” – always good from dough to crumb – remains unchanged and it is also highly visible on the back wall of the store. The aprons of the staff carry the message “Prueba el Pan de Verdad” – Try the real bread.

The overall ambiance of the bakery is open and clean, warm and inviting, but it is not cozy or homey. There is a sense of production and large scale with metal trays, rows of shelving and large displays.

There are few visual or physical barriers between the customers and the bakers, and the active production pace of a busy bakery is openly visible to all. At the exit, customers will encounter a display of the traditional celebratory breads, Rosca de Reyes and Pan de Muertos.

“Rosca de Reyes” (kings’ wreath) is a Mexican traditional celebratory bread wreath enjoyed with family and friends on “Dia de Reyes” on January 6^th (Epiphany Day or Kings Day). A small plastic figurine is placed inside the wreath symbolising baby Jesus. The person who finds the figurine is expected to throw a fiesta and serve tamales for everyone on” Dia de la Candelaria” on February 2.

“Pan de Muertos” (bread of the dead) is an essential part of a “Dia de Los Muertos” (celebrated in October or November) home shrine or ofrenda. The bread’s purpose is to nourish the dead who visit the land of the living on that day. Tuija Seipell

Images Jose Miguel Gonzales/Apertura Studio, Juan Pablo Tavela/Jpark Studio

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Rehousing their Michelin-starred restaurant Äng into a starkly minimalist glasshouse is the latest development at Ästad Vingård winery . The owners, the Carlsson siblings, continue to tick off all the correct trend boxes at their winery in southwestern Sweden.

Yes, a winery in Sweden. In fact, there are more than 40 wineries in the Scandinavian country and at five hectares (about 12.5 acres), Ästad is one of the largest. But even it sells its wines only on-site at the moment, chiefly because the state-owned and -operated Systembolaget holds the country’s strict alcohol-selling monopoly.

But back to the trends at the Ästad estate. Daniel Carlsson and his siblings, Linda Persson and Mattias Glamheden, all with their families, are the third generation of Carlssons on the farm. It started as a traditional farm, was transferred into an organic dairy farm by their parents, Rolf and Ann-Catrine Carlsson, and since 2009, part of the estate has been developed into an organic winery, spa and restaurant.

So, trendwise, we are already ticking off second-generation organic farming, organic wine, winery as a destination, and winery as a wellness destination connected to other attractions, such as a spa and conference facilities, that draw the modern, affluent clientele.

The Äng restaurant’s first iteration was an upscale, experimental add-on to an on-site bistro. By 2021 Äng (Swedish for meadow or field)  had earned its first Michelin star and was starting to really attract attention. So, as a natural progression of estate’s continuing development, Daniel Carlsson felt it was time to give the restaurant a place that fit the bill.

Daniel’s vision and design for the new home of Äng focuses on the views, which is why a multi-level glasshouse is, in a way, an obvious, solution, although an unusual one. The ground level of the unassuming glasshouse includes a bar, a lounge and a small kitchen. The below-ground level includes a windowless wine cellar, another lounge and a large , natural light-filled dining room. The lower level is built into the sloping hill and opens up to the expansive views of the pond, lakes and beech forests of the Åkulla nature reserve in Halland.

Ticking off further trend boxes, the restaurant offers a 17-course tasting menu that varies based on what is locally available, some of it on the estate, and in season. And it all is, of course, paired with the estate’s wines, currently mainly sparkling and white wines from the Solaris grape.

Further trend points are given for the furniture that Daniel selected to use for the project. He was initially drawn to the minimalism of the Japanese wooden-furniture manufacturer Karimoku’s N-DCo1 dining chair that is part of the company’s Case Studies series and was designed by Copenhagen-based Norm Architects together with Tokyo-based Studio Keiji.

This initial contact led to all of the players collaborating and creating new and potentially permanent pieces for the Case Study collection. In the end, Norm ended up handling the entire interior fit-out of the project with Daniel Carlsson. They adjusted the material palette, proportions and tones of several existing Case Study pieces.

These include the Norm’s N-CCo1 club chair that was transformed into a love seat for the cellar lounge, while the A-So1 two-seater sofa has been down-sized and the N-STo2 table increased in size to become a dining table. New items for the project include a serving trolley and a small table.

What is best about the Ästad Vingård and Äng is not all of the trend boxes that have been ticked off but the sincerity and uncompromising passion with which the owners pour their energies into this unlikely wine yard. And the future looks bright as the fourth generation of Carlssons is already involved in the business. Tuija Seipell

Images: Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen

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The structure housing the 589 square-metre (6,340 sq.ft) café on the weather-beaten, rugged beach is elegant in its low minimalist profile.

The café extends into three separate buildings. The central entrance space houses a bakery and a coffee bar. Angled on both sides are two separate seating areas, each with incredible views of the beach.

Minimalist black, white and natural slate hues dominate all three areas with the bakery mostly slate-grey and one of the seating areas almost completely black with long tables and low-hanging lighting. The overall elongated, low-slung design language draws the eye to the windows and to the rugged scenery outside.

The boxy shape of the structures and the rigid shapes of the windows and long tables are softened by rounded details, such as the hanging light fixtures, chair backs and the edges of the lower tables made of bulky, dark slabs of wood.

With the dark minimalist interiors and the indoor pathways flanked by rock-filled “wells” there is a definite Japanese sensibility to the seating areas. We love the drama created by letting the spectacular views dominate the rooms.

Matter Better (mttb) was in charge of branding, concept design, schematic design, working drawings and design supervision of this project.

Images: Yongjoon Choi

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Toronto-based restaurateur Matty Matheson is known for many things but subtlety is not one of them. He swears, huffs and waves his hands, and his many tattoos, beanie cap and unkempt beard, he looks slightly dangerous. And it is obvious that he likes it that way. Matty Matheson is a brand.

But there is one important thing for which you cannot blame him and that is lack of passion. His infectious enthusiasm and fervour for his latest restaurant Prime Seafood Palace in Toronto’s West Queen West is both delightful and genuine. And, in a way, the new restaurant is off-brand for Matheson. And he likes that, too.

For six years he and architect Omar Gandhi have worked on every little detail of the restaurant that serves not just seafood but also steaks and an ambitious menu of vegetables.

Matheson admires iconic steak houses, but he also has an affinity for basic family restaurant chains including the Canadian The Keg. But the most palpable features of his latest restaurant are based on his memories of his grandfather’s Blue Goose restaurant, still operating in Prince Edward Island. Matheson himself was born in Saint John, New Brunswick 40 years ago.

He also selected an architect that is not known for restaurant design. His choice, Omar Gandhi, is a fellow Maritimer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Toronto. Together, before deciding on anything at all, they wanted to scrutinize and analyze each aspect of the restaurant from their individual and common perspectives, and infuse their reverence of artisanship, exquisite quality and warm, welcoming comfort.

But the comfort of Prime Seafood Palace is far from that of a comfy greasy spoon. Instead, its welcoming ambiance is created by an elegant mix of Maritime, Scandinavian and Japanese minimalist design. The key components are wood, leather and brass. Each material was chosen for its propensity to accumulate a lovely patina that will eventually create a sense of ageless beauty.

And as Gandhi is quick to point out, in the end, the key player is light. The way the light is diffused by the brass screens and horizontal maple slabs evokes an atmosphere of warmth and an ever-changing mood.

The square building itself is a non-descript red-brick barn that is now painted white with black rims. Inside, the most striking attribute is the heigh of the main space emphasized by a huge barrel vault made of maple wood slats weighing more than 900 lb in total.

The airy space configuration includes four booths, a few tables and a bar. In addition, there is what Matheson calls The Cottage, with its wood-burning Jotul stove stacked wood and lambskin-covered chairs.

Every item is either custom-created for the restaurant, or sourced specifically to fit the design criteria. Custom furniture was created, for example, by Coolican & Company and custom pendant lighting by Concord.

Matty Matheson is known as the winner on TV Show Burger Wars, for hosting Matty and Benny Eat Out America with record producer Benny Blanco, and his Viceland cooking show It’s Suppertime!. He also has two New York Times-bestselling cookbooks, and two other restaurants, Matty’s Patty’s and Fonda Balam both also in Toronto’s Queen Street West area. In addition, he has an online store, matheswoncookware cookware line and popular YouTube and Instagram accounts. He is involved with several cooperative endeavours, creates pop-ups for fun and for profit, and is a frequent guest on TV shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live! and cameo in catfishing adventures with Bon Appetit’s Brad Leone. – Tuija Seipell

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Owning any kind of car today is questionable. Owning a whole collection of luxury cars even more so. But there is no denying that the cars of the past were much sexier and had more personality than today’s boring line-up with its mind-numbing sameness and boring repetition. There are exceptions, of course, especially at the luxury end, but generally nothing stands out. And yes, we are sure that car enthusiasts can tell the difference between any makes and models even today, but we cannot really get ourselves all that interested in cars. But we do favour preserving, restoring and respecting historic and iconic design and architecture, and that includes cars as well.

So, with all these caveats and explanations, we find The Library car collection space in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district deserving of attention. Designed by the Hong Kong, Paris and Bali-based A Work of Substance www.aworkofsubstance.com the ground and top-floors of the six-storey building convey an ambiance of romance to highlight the the owner’s nostalgic car collection.

The owner of the building wanted the top-floor as his private 6,120 square-foot (620 sq metre) lounge, bar, racing simulator and display space for his eight 1950s cars and memorabilia. The design firm co-founder Maxime Dautresme has said that the client wanted the feel of a living room with his cars around him. The space is also designed for entertaining

Everything oozes bygone motoring elegance, top-level craftmanship and attention to detail. Mid-century modernist teak and leather furnishings are accented by car-inspired details including lighting resembling car headlights, hand-stitched leather armchairs that pay tribute to the Ferrari Dino 246 GT (1969-1974), side tables imitating spark plugs and cabinetry handles channeling the 250 GT Berlinetta SWB (1959-1963) door handles.

The vehicles on display include a Ferrari F40 (1987-1992), Mercedes 300SL Gullwing (1954-1957), Aston Martin DB5 (1963-1965), Pagani Huayra (2011-2018), and a Porsche 911 Carrera RS (1973-1974).

On the ground floor, the security office repeats the aluminum roundness of the classic 1930s Airstream Caravan. Two stainless-steel car elevators, three-metre-diameter ceiling fans and the solid concrete walls create a masculine, industrial feel that is softened by the wood panelling and the car-seat inspired leather seating in the waiting area.

Rio de Janeiro-born, Paris-educated, Maxime Dautresme has a cosmopolitan background that speaks of curiosity and cultural variety. He was born to a private-banker father and a mother who is the daughter of Brazilian painter Cicero Dias and also the goddaughter of Pablo Picasso. Before moving to Hong Kong, Dautresme had lived in Rio, Seoul, Monaco, Paris, Shanghai and Miami. His first project with A Work of Substance was the House of Dancing Water show created by the Cirque du Soleil-famed Franco Dragone https://dragone.com/shows/the-house-of-dancing-water/ in Macau’s City of Dreams www.cityofdreamsmacau.com.

A Work of Substance, founded by Maxime Dautresme and Florian Michaux in 2002 in Paris, is a multidisciplinary practice covering architecture, landscape, interior and product design as well as branding from strategy to identity, packaging, digital and marketing. The firm’s team represents 15 countries. Tuija Seipell

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Although BIBU is promoted as a “pet store” it is really much more. It is an entire pet-care and pet-pampering environment, strategically answering the call of the younger generations to provide the services and products their pampered pets need. In addition to retailing pets, pet supplies and food, BIBU includes also a veterinary clinic and hospital, and facilities for pet boarding, spa, grooming and training.

The designers of the two-level, 630 square-metre (6,781 sq. ft) shop are Guangchou-based One Fine Day Studio & Partners, a (ofD), an architecture and design firm established in 2013.

Lead architect Jump Lee with design team members Chun-jie He and Yong-jie Lao drew inspiration for the upscale project from American filmmaker Stan Kubric’s iconic 1968 sci-fi film 2001:A Space Odyssey.

The façade of the store that is located in the high-end condo building, Gaode Mansion, is a happy and friendly bright blue square that immediately attracts attention. With its rounded openings it resembles a 1950s appliance, perhaps a radio, fridge or TV. It also heralds the retro milieu of the interior.

On the ground floor, right at the entrance, ofD placed a social area, a café called DOPPIO by La Moitié where the Space Odyssey-theme is the most obvious. The white tiled floor, the futuristic furniture pieces placed far from each other, and the overall feel of space, light and whiteness are all part of this retrofuturist impression, the future of the past. The design firm has worked with La Moitié before, so the connection with that brand came naturally.

The second-floor includes the pet hospital and clinic where cleanliness is the main requirement. But even there, in the general whiteness, the Space Odyssey-theme is palpable in the, muted colours, smoky metal and abundance of lighting fixtures.

The two-level space, although divided clearly into sections that separate the various services, is connected by an open atrium that gives the viewpoint from which one can really appreciate yet another aspect of the Space Odyssey theme, the rounded forms of the project.

From the spiralling stairs to partitions, lighting fixtures and windows, everything is rounded. This also includes all corners as there are no sharp angles in BIBU, which of course is also good for the guests, the pampered pets.

The overall colour scheme is muted white with forest green and robin’s-egg blue as accents and with white tiles and dark wooden panels covering the floors.

The Gaode Mansion is located in the core area of Guangzhou, next to the K11 Art Mall and the International Financial Centre. Tuija Seipell

Images by yuuuunstudio

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Described by local media as Adelaide’s first open-flame restaurant, arkhé is a refreshingly unassuming entry into the city’s culinary scene. In a time marked with constant change, disconnection and uncertainty, the restaurant’s frank design and cuisine, both centred around fire, evoke a sense of clarity and community.

Its name is the Greek word translated as “something that was in the beginning,” and also as first principle, origin, source of action.

The kitchen is helmed by co-owner Jake Kellie, Australian Young Chef of the Year 2015 and also known for his appearances in the MasterChef Australia TV show. He returns to Australia from Singapore where he was head chef of Michelin-starred Burnt Ends, a modern Australian barbecue restaurant ranked consistently among the World’s 50 Best Barbeque restaurants.

In arkhé Kellie partnered with Palmer Hospitality, the local group behind Adelaide-based restaurants such as 2KW, Fishbank and Paloma Bar & Restaurant.

To design the space, the partners selected Olivier Martin of Adelaide-based architecture and design firm studio -gram whose restaurant design portfolio in Adelaide includes Osteria Oggi, Shobsoho and Leigh Street Wine Room.

Arkhé’s address is number 127 The Parade in the main shopping and restaurant area of Norwood, a trendy and eclectic Adelaide suburb approximately four kilometres (2.5 miles) east of the city centre.

Arkhé is located on the ground floor of a heritage-listed two-storey Victorian building where the slightly prissy white façade is deceptive. Inside, the space itself also seems much smaller than it turns out to be.

The 200-person-capacity restaurant consists of three distinct segments all connected via a long corridor: the entry lounge, the main dining and kitchen area (seats 80) and the courtyard at the back.

Hues of muted white and smoky black plus natural materials, such as reclaimed timber, local stone and lime plaster,-create an inviting and unassuming milieu. For example, the seating booths were created with black salvaged railway sleepers that evoke a patina and heritage that matches perfectly with the fire-focus of the restaurant.

The lounge leads to the chef’s table area that acts as an ante-room for the main dining room. The long table itself is a custom-creation by studio -gram and is flanked by eight Thea chairs by local maker Remington Matters. On one side of the table is an art installation and on the other is Kellie’s collection of fermentation jars, all constantly in full use. A four-metre-long row of slip-cast porcelain tubes custom-created by Adelaide-based Handmade & Found hangs over the central communal table that seats 18.

The open kitchen’s mood is softened by wood that is used in many places instead of the stainless steel that dominates most restaurant kitchens. The source of action and main character in the kitchen is fire. Weighing three-and-a-half tonnes the dual-cavity wood oven is the central hub that also generates the coals for the four elevation grills as well.

Kelllie focuses the cuisine on local ingredients cooked either in the wood-fired ovens or over the open grill. No gas or electricity is used in the cooking. The lounge and courtyard serve drinks and snacks only. The chef’s table has a bespoke tasting menu separate from the main dining room. Tuija Seipell

Images: Timothy Kaye

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With smart design, basic local craft skills and a flexible experimental attitude, even the most ordinary warehouse-like space can become an appealing selling environment.

This was recently proven in the Yuntai Ice Chrysanthemum Industry Park in Houyanmen Village in Huanfeng Town, where Beijing-based LUO Studio www.luostudio.cn transformed a hurriedly built steel-frame warehouse into a locally relevant, charming  display space by creating a delicate-looking wooden sub-structure inside the bland hall.

The purpose of this specific building is to function as a display area and showroom for the region’s famous Ice Chrysanthemum products that have a multitude of medicinal and cosmetic uses. The selling channels of these products from this space include hosted tour groups, franchisee marketing and livestreaming. It was also becoming clear that because of social media and online channels, the physical selling and display environment have become crucially important.

In addition, the pandemic has interrupted the influx of tour groups and the ice chrysanthemum plantations in the village have suffered severe production decrease because of recent floods. All this required the space not only to help boost sales but also do it with minimum costs.

Designers and construction instructors Luo Yujie, Wang Beilei, Huang Shangwan, Zhang Chen of LUO Studio worked with local people to create the 602 square-metre (6,480 sq.ft) exhibition space with all this in mind. Local affordable materials, and uncomplicated techniques that did not require special equipment or specialised skills, were the answer. LUO Studio chose thin wooden panels with a high lumber recovery rate manufactured by a local timber factory as main construction material. The panels can be assembled by hand and easily relocated and reused.

Onsite experimentation helped the designers and local workers to arrive at the best solutions especially in terms of bending the wood to an optimal, safe shape. The result is a delicate and organic-looking display area that is thoroughly local, and cleverly disguises the unseemly industrial hall.

Luo Yujie, founder of LUO Studio, is known for his creative and bold design solutions using reclaimed materials, especially wood. His award-winning project include the Longfu Life Experience Center and the Luontuwan Pergola. He often strives to counter the quick-and-cheap construction characteristics of governmental bodies with the smart use of local materials and craft skills, and with the reuse and recyclability of materials.

Yuntai Mountain is located in the Yuntai Geo Park, a popular tourist attraction with its impressive rugged nature including Yuntai Waterfall which at 314 metres (1,030 ft) said to be the tallest in China. Tuija Seipell

Images: Weiqi Jin

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We support the liberation of bread and all baked goods from all unsightly plastic bags and from humiliatingly poor ingredients. Bread is important, essential and incredibly good and good for you when taken seriously. This does not mean complicated or gimmicky. In fact, the best breads, cookies and pastries are the ancient basics, traditional recipes lovingly passed on and sometimes improved by each generation. These gorgeous traditional breads deserve to be created, sold and enjoyed in beautiful surroundings.

Our love of bread and bakeries where tradition and modern life coexist has resulted in a series of articles we headlined The Rise of the Designer Bakery. It continues to be one of our most popular and most-copied article series ever. And we are glad to add another little establishment to this series of bakeries: Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique in Cividale de Friuli, in Udine, Italy.

Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique is a bakery and café designed by Giorgio di Bernardo, CEO and founder of Udine-based Visual Display S.r.l. We have featured di Bernardo’s work before, including the Restoration of Vitello d’Oro, The City’s Oldest Restaurant, a secret pop-up bar, Mr. Simon, both also located in Udine in Northeastern Italy.

Gubana is a typical Friulian dessert of the Valli del Natisone area traditionally prepared at home for great occasions. It is said to date back to 1,400 years ago and brought to this region by the people of ancient Slavic origin.

The Dorbolo family has a long tradition of baking this local dessert that is both a pastry and a cake made of sweet, leavened dough and filled with layers of dried fruit and nuts. The owners of the new bakery café, Jessica and Joelle Dorbolo, have inherited the recipe from their grandmother Antonia.

In addition to gubana, the shop sells other cakes and pastries and traditional breads. Its interior is minimalist in all other aspects except in the ceiling that has an arched substructure that could be said to resemble the layers of a gubana when it is cut into slices. The designer tells us that the shop is envisioned to be a small stage with its various sets up in the wings. The majority of the space is dedicated to the marble display cases, but in the background, there are small round tables with intriguing L-shaped brass legs that bolt into the wall-mounted seating.

The overall effect is that of a light and happy yet decidedly elegant cake box or container that just happens to have breathtaking views of the historic city center of Cividale del Friuli.  Tuija Seipell

Images Camilla Bach – Styling Sara Bertolini

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SOMA Soho is the first bar venture of chef Will Bowlby and former accountant Rik Campbell, the men behind the three Kricket Restaurants located in Brixton, Soho and White City in London. Bowlby had worked in restaurants in Mumbai and reinterpreted his ideas of Indian cuisine for Krickets, ever since the first one opened in 2015 initially as a pop-up in a shipping container in Brixton.

While the three Krickets are food-focused, SOMA Soho is all about drinks and gathering in a slightly secretive space to share them. Like Krickets, SOMA Soho draws its inspiration from India, although the connection here is visually subtle and more obvious in the unusual and bold types of drinks on offer.

To realize their India-inspired speakeasy-bar, Bowlby and Campbell engaged Cake Architecture’s https://cake-architecture.com Hugh Moncrieff, and interior designer and gallerist, Max Radford.

Located behind a discreet door in a basement on a side street in Soho, SOMA Soho has an air of secrecy and darkness, but also an inviting sense of togetherness. The owners say that they felt that the post-pandemic bar really had to be about interaction and connection. People want to put their phones away and enjoy real human interaction.

The key feature of the main space is a nine-metre, hand-finished stainless-steel bar. It was custom-created in cooperation with BehindBars Agency https://behindbars.agency , a respected, Oslo, Norway-based design agency focused on bar furnishings. The bar is fitted with five sunken communal wine-cooler wells in which the patrons can keep and share their wine bottles.

The designers at Cake Architecture looked into Indian traditions, festivals and colours and selected the hues of dark indigo, saffron, orange, red, brown and silver for the interior. Heavy indigo drapery softens the bar space and also acts as screens and dividers to conceal three more intimate, arch-defined cubicles, a timber-clad lounge and the back-of-house areas.

The owners say that their friend, interior designer Max Radford was instrumental in selecting the unusual materials, including the curtain that is made of an upholstery fabric. He also selected the Dreadnought Staffordshire Blue tiles that cover the floors and extend across the walls and ceiling of the vaulted lobby. They are generally used for outdoor spaces, but at SOMA Soho they help evoke a sense of a midnight gathering on a piazza.

SOMA Soho’s tagline is “In search of the Divine’ — a lofty goal for any enterprise. And according to the owners, soma is a Vedic Sanskrit word that means to distil and extract. And that, in turn, can be interpreted as a practical, albeit extremely demanding task. In SOMA Soho, Bowlby and Campbell have set their sights on something that they will never achieve and therefore — to the delight of their patrons — they will continue innovate and create. Tuija Seipell

Images by Felix Speller

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