Tondeluna, a gastrobar located in Logroño, Spain has been renowned not only for its wonderful food and drinks but also for its impeccable design that has been awarded with one of Spain’s top prizes for interior architecture, an FAD award.
Architects Picado de Blas, having a strong belief that space can determine food, tried to create a restaurant that emphasises the combination of aesthetic and functional requirements as well as respect to sustainability. With clean lines of wood paneled interiors, bright colors, calming open spaces and uniquely designed kitchen and dining areas that allow a direct interaction between diners and kitchen, the architects achieved a cheerful and welcoming environment,eliminating the classical concept of a restaurant which separates the use of each space. Instead, the interior should give the feeling of participating in the process of cooking while the guests are waiting to be served. Everything had to be part of the same experience and the whole table should be like a plate.
The second challenge was to try to evoke the feelings of silence, uncertainty, light and colour that one gets after a walk in a beech forest. And even if one repeated the exact same path every day, somehow the view would always appear different. So, in the restaurant nothing should be static. The kitchen has been designed in a way that can be broken down in atomized mobile elements that can be transported anywhere in the restaurant. The colours that have been chosen are the result of a poetic translation of the beech forest, the place where the chef and owner Francis Paniego reminisces his dreams. Natural light bounces off the wall and reflects the park in a dispersed form, giving spaciousness to the room and views to the park from the tables.
