Ryoji Iedokoro turns Tokyo’s Nikunotoriko restaurant into indoor cave

Low lighting, tough stone-effect partitions and water-like glass flooring assist create a cave-like ambiance inside this restaurant in Tokyo designed by architect Ryoji Iedokoro.

Located in Tokyo’s bustling Roppongi district, Nikunotoriko has been designed by regionally based mostly architect Ryoji Iedokoro.

It provides an alternate tackle yakiniku – a Japanese eating type which sees clients grill bite-sized items of meat over a small gridiron at their desk.

“You will discover Japanese yakiniku eating places in all places…and it at all times tastes good, which makes the competitors in Japan very excessive,” Iedokoro defined.

“To make a novel restaurant can thus be fairly a problem.”

Iedokoro determined to create a surreal, cave-like inside that “you wouldn’t actually discover in precise nature”. In the primary eating room, which is situated on the bottom flooring, partitions are made to resemble craggy rock surfaces.

Translucent tiles have then been organized in a herringbone sample on the ground to imitate the looks of flowing water. A 6.5 metre-long glass desk that sits on the centre of the room is patterned with wispy brown paint strokes that resemble furls of smoke.

Cave-like reward outlets created by Koichi Takada Architects inside Nationwide Museum of Qatar

Instantly beneath is a shallow trough of gravel supposed to make guests really feel like they’re “sitting close to a river”. Lighting has been restricted to only a handful of spotlights embedded within the ceiling.

References to the outside proceed up on the second flooring, the place a sequence of raised consuming areas have been crafted by staggering undulating panels of OSB – a sort of engineered timber that is made by compressing flakes of wooden that lie in several instructions.

“Because the tables are all on completely different ranges, it means that you can have the privateness together with your family members that makes the eating expertise one thing extra memorable and personal,” added Iedokoro.

Every space is enclosed by a circle of floor-to-ceiling metal pipes that are supposed to make diners really feel as if they’re sitting amongst tall bushes in a forest, enhanced by the encircling greenery-lined partitions.

The pipes are additionally fitted with small hooks the place coats or luggage will be hung, which the architect hopes will “seem like flowers”.

Visitors sit on easy earth-toned cushions on the ground across the central gridiron.

Very similar to Ryoji Iedokoro, Koichi Takada Architects created a grotto-like reward store contained in the Nationwide Museum of Qatar earlier this yr, which options two hovering, undulating partitions.

Michan Structure additionally added two enormous, drop-down concrete lights to Mexico Metropolis’s Oku restaurant to type a lowered cave-like ceiling.

Images is by Satoru Umetsu from Nacasa & Companions.