Plant Food + Wine
Rene Gonzalez Architect
YEAR
2016
LOCATION
Miami, FL, United States
TYPE
Hospitality + Sport › Restaurant
Flanked by royal palms and bamboo, The Sacred Space Miami complex, which originated with the design for the offices of Karla Conceptual Event Experiences, was originally completed by RGA in 2006.
Now an epicenter for wellness and transformation, it serves as an entry oasis to a new restaurant, Plant Food + Wine Miami, and teaching academy, Matthew Kenney Culinary, led by plant-based Chef Matthew Kenney.
The outdoor garden serves as an integral element, blending interior and exterior space with a series of indoor and outdoor “dining rooms.”
Distinguishing the restaurant’s indoor seating area, a bamboo floor and ceiling connect to two facing walls with vertical panels of the same material interspersed with reflective bronze mirror.
Visually integrated with the dining area, both the main kitchen and teaching Academy are visible through a series of glass partition windows.
Floor-to-ceiling glass windows open to fully merge the dining area with the outdoors, extending to a café with a deck of weathered ipe wood and a talipot palm tree, the largest of its species and with the largest leaf in the plant kingdom.
The focus of the exterior space, an elongated reflecting pool serves as a central element and connects two additional seating areas, one featuring the regular placement of potted guava trees and a diagonally-placed custom bench and the other, an outdoor lounge space with a series of palm trees connected by lights.
Each of these “rooms” possess different elements that contribute to the multi-sensory experience of this series of indoor/outdoor spaces.
A pocket sanctuary hidden among the industrial surroundings of the city’s burgeoning Wynwood area, Plant Food + Wine at The Sacred Space Miami was conceived as a warm environment, but with the flexibility to be transformed for a variety of uses.
