Many café and restaurant interiors start from a moodboard: a colour that is trending, a material seen on social media, a style the owner likes. The result can look good on opening day, but it says little about the brand, and the next café down the street can copy it in a month.
Three new F&B projects featured in Dezeen start somewhere else. Each one begins with the brand's own story, its menu, its origin or its first city, and turns that story into materials, objects and rituals guests can see and touch.
A restaurant built around its menu
In Vancouver, studio &Daughters designed Jeju, a 44-seat Korean restaurant. The starting point was not a style but the menu: modern dishes by chef Dylan Kim, traditional dishes by his mother, chef Julie Suh, and dishes they created together. "The restaurant exists in the space where these two narratives meet," principal Emma Sims told Dezeen.
That idea of tradition and reinterpretation runs through every decision:
- Origin sets the material. The bar, chef's table and host stand are made of basalt, "one of the most recognisable materials of Jeju Island". Cork, concrete, wood and thatch complete a short, "direct and unrefined" palette.
- One object carries the story. At the centre of the room stands a reinterpretation of a chogajip, a traditional thatched house from Jeju, built from timber and hand-thatched grass.
- Tradition becomes a daily ritual. Beside the entrance, the studio placed its version of a jeongnang, a three-pole gate once used to show whether a household was home. Staff lower two poles each day to show the restaurant is open, and raise them again at the end of service.
A tea shop that borrows from two places
For Chinese tea brand Basao, architect Keiji Ashizawa designed a 108 m² flagship in Shanghai's Rockbund district that combines retail with a tea counter. "We place great importance on understanding the building's location, history, and relationship with its surroundings," he said.
The design takes from two places at once. From the neighbourhood: vaulted steel ceiling elements that echo the arches of Rockbund's historic buildings, and a brick floor, a material found on their facades. From the brand's origin: a plaster finish inspired by the rammed-earth buildings of Fujian province, where Basao began, and bronze-coloured metal that refers to copper tea utensils.
The space is also split by mood. The retail area is bright and open to the street. The seating area uses darker tones, "much like the living room of a friend's home".
A first café that makes an entrance
When Blue Bottle Coffee opened its first café in Bangkok, Japanese studio I IN wanted a "bold and dramatic" space that still belonged to Thailand. The answer is the Blue Lantern, a large sculpture above the drip station inspired by Thai lantern festivals, placed where customers first enter "so it would immediately catch their attention and become a symbol of the store."
The brand's signature blue stays constant on the lantern and counter. Everything else is local: furniture in teak, a wood widely used in northern Thailand, and gold details that the designer remembered from walking around the city.
What these projects have in common
Put side by side, the three projects follow the same order of work:
- Start from what the brand already has. A menu, a place of origin, a signature colour. These are harder to copy than a trend.
- Choose one hero element. A thatched house, a vaulted ceiling, a lantern. One strong idea placed where guests first look does more than many small decorations.
- Turn the story into materials. Basalt from Jeju, rammed earth from Fujian, teak from Thailand. Materials carry a story without a single word on the wall.
- Keep the brand fixed and let the place change. Blue Bottle keeps its blue; Basao keeps its tea culture. What changes is how each store responds to its city and building.
- Design the rituals, not only the room. Lowering the poles at Jeju, choosing between the bright shop and the darker tea room at Basao. These moments are what guests remember and share.
Questions for your next F&B project
- What is the one story your brand can tell that a competitor cannot?
- Which material or object could carry that story without explanation?
- Where will guests look first when they walk in, and what should they see there?
- Which parts must stay the same in every store, and which can change with the building and neighbourhood?
- Is there a daily moment, opening, serving or closing, that could become part of the design?
The answers belong in the brief before any moodboard. They also decide what goes into a space guideline when the brand opens more stores, so that each one is consistent, not identical.
How we approach it at Module K
For Phê La, our space branding draws its atmosphere from tea leaves, morning moisture and small moments of rest. Fresh greens, botanical imagery and hand-drawn faces turn natural references into a friendly brand world that guests recognise in every store.
At Module K, we work beyond spaces, building brand systems. If you are planning a new café, restaurant or F&B chain, talk to us about the story your space should tell.
