Mexican architects ODAmx and Rubén Valdez have designed a restaurant with an ash-coloured inside inside a former mechanic’s workshop in Guadalajara.
Now situated within the Mexican metropolis’s Santa Tere neighbourhood, Xokol started in 2017 inside a small area that housed simply 4 tables and room for 16 diners.
In 2020, the restaurant relocated to this bigger constructing, the place the goal was to protect as a lot of the intimacy and connection between the diners and cooks as attainable.
“Xokol is a restaurant wherein the act of consuming turns into a collective ritual,” mentioned ODAmx and Rubén Valdez in a joint assertion. “The structure of the area acts a catalyst for the reinterpretation of Mexican culinary traditions and a communal eating expertise wherein the boundaries between diners, workers and meals preparation are non-existent.”
The restaurant’s inside has a minimalist, monastic high quality because of the darkish gray stucco protecting the partitions and ceiling, and the black clay comal ovens on full show within the open kitchen.
“These muted tones foreground the naturally wealthy color palettes of the dishes,” the architects mentioned.
The concrete workshop constructing’s exterior was left largely unchanged, other than the layers of tall panels of metal added throughout the garage-door entrance to information visitors inside.
A 15-metre-long oak desk runs the size of the double-height inside, enabling 48 covers to be seated without delay and share the expertise.
Suspended above the desk is an industrial pendant mild that stretches its entice size, emitting a comfortable glow over the place settings.
Over the centre of the eating space, a big skylight is roofed by a metallic grill from which tons of of corn cobs dangle – offering the one trace of color within the in any other case monochrome restaurant, moreover the dishes served.
The kitchen runs alongside the desk on the opposite facet of the constructing, in direction of the again the place a grid of cabinets accommodates jars for fermenting components.
A staircase winds round a totemic stone sculpture by native artist José Dávila, as much as a mezzanine degree that overlooks the eating space.
All the supplies used for the mission had been sourced regionally, and the eating desk, pendant mild and shelving had been fabricated by Guadalajaran artisans.
“Since its beginnings, Xokol has aimed to preserve and get better the Mazahua culinary traditions and share them with a broader public in a recent method,” mentioned the architects.
“The architectural mission acts as an enabler for such objective the place each design choice has been thought to realize it,” they added.
Xokol is shortlisted within the restaurant and bar inside class of Dezeen Awards 2023, together with a Toronto seafood restaurant by Omar Gandhi Architects, a vaulted brick brewery taproom in Poland by Projekt Praga and three extra tasks.
Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest metropolis, is a hotbed for architectural expertise and has a thriving meals scene.
Different eating places with spectacular interiors within the metropolis embody Veneno, designed by Monteon Arquitectos Asociados to resemble an archeological web site, and Hueso, which Cadena + Asociados lined with hundreds of animal bones.
The images is by Rafael Palacios.
Venture credit:
Structure: ODAmx and Rubén Valdez
Carpenter: Joselo Maderista
Art work: José Dávila
