The Eat Drink Design Awards have wrapped up for another year, celebrating design excellence and innovation at recently opened restaurants, bars, cafs, nightclubs, retail spaces and temporary venues in Australia and New Zealand.
Adelaide is home to both the Best Bar Design and Best Identity Design category winner, Pink Moon Saloon. A small bar designed by Adelaide’s Sans-Arc Studio, Pink Moon Saloon was described as a “’cubby house’ snuggled in a laneway in the heart of CBD.”
Melbourne was also a big winner, with Higher Ground (designed by DesignOffice) taking out Best Caf Design, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (designed by Bates Smart) awarded Best Restaurant Design and Lune Croissanterie (designed by Studio Esteta) claiming Best Retail Design.
This year’s jury also inducted Melbourne’s Italian dining institution, Il Bacaro (designed by Chris Connell Design) into the Eat Drink Design Awards’ Hall of Fame.
No Sydney, Brisbane or Perth projects won awards this year.
The winners at a glance:
- Best Bar Design – Pink Moon Saloon by Sans-Arc Studio
- Best Caf Design – Higher Ground by DesignOffice
- Best Restaurant Design – Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
- Best Identity Design – Pink Moon Saloon by Peculiar Familia
- Best Retail Design – Lune Croissanterie by Studio Esteta
The annual Eat Drink Design Awards celebrate design excellence within Australian and New Zealand hospitality premises that have opened in the past 18 months.
Lune Croissanterie by Studio Esteta. Image:
The 2016 jury comprised Hamish Guthrie (interior designer and director of Hecker Guthrie), Adele Winteridge (interior architect and director of Foolscap Studio), Terry Durack (chief restaurant critic, Sydney Morning Herald), Julie Gibbs (food and lifestyle publisher) and Cameron Bruhn (editorial director at Architecture Media).
“Perhaps the most prominent of the characteristics held in common is the overall ambition evident at every level. Regardless of the modesty of means, or the constraints of individual project settings, each and every project that has been commended or received an award sought to boldly ‘punch above its weight’,” said jury chairperson, Cameron Bruhn.