Bachelor students redesign at the Food Design Lab the experience of Enigma restaurant by the chef Albert Adrià

Enigma restaurant, by the renowned chef Albert Adrià, has opened its doors to the creativity of the next generation of designers in a collaboration with Elisava. The challenge: transforming the restaurant’s welcome experience through an immersive and sophisticated interaction that is coherent with Enigma’s avant-garde identity.

For a month, students from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year of the Bachelor in Design and Innovation and the Bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering, grouped into multidisciplinary teams, have explored at the Food Design Lab how to apply food design as a tool and methodology of sensory and narrative innovation in the context of haute cuisine.

The briefing, provided by the restaurant team, included real problems like the lack of visibility of the entrance, the low functionality of the welcome area and the complexity of the flow of diners during the service. The proposals included edible scenography, entrance rituals and technological interventions with sensory devices, all of them designed to create a memorable experience from the first step customers take in the restaurant.

The final presentation of the projects, on May 7 at Elisava, was attended by Enigma’s creative team. The proposed ideas have stood out for being able to integrate design, functionality, emotion and enhancement of the restaurant’s gastronomic product, reaffirming the role of food design as a strategic tool in the future of gastronomy and restaurant business.

This collaboration not only reinforces the link between academia and the gastronomic sector, but also anticipates the kind of real and transforming experiences that the future students of our new Bachelor in Design for Food Systems will be able to live. A program aimed at those who wish to design the future of food from an interdisciplinary, critical and creative perspective, connecting gastronomy, sustainability, social innovation and experience design.