Following the success of pop-ups in Tokyo, Sydney and Tulum, noma has teamed up with Ace Hotel Kyoto to transform one of their existing restaurants into Noma Kyoto. The restaurant is situated inside Ace Hotel Kyoto and accommodates an extraordinary dining experience featuring noma’s signature culinary style, working with local ingredients and fresh produce. OEO Studio worked closely with the noma team and with noma’s residence stylist Christine Rudolph to create a space that reflects noma and the culinary vision for Noma Kyoto.

The existing 250 m2 restaurant space includes a high ceiling main dining area with views out to a garden oasis, alongside a secondary dining room and two separate private dining rooms, all transformed for the residency. The design brief was to capture the spirit of noma, infused with the design traditions of Japan and Kyoto. OEO Studio are experts at subtly blending Nordic and Japanese culture to create a warm and tactile interior enhanced with dimmed lighting, welcoming acoustics, and an earthy palette of colours. All elements combine to pay tribute to the cultural context but frame the unexpected – the result is a bold interior that sets the scene for an extraordinary dining experience.

OEO Studio was inspired by Kyoto’s rich history for crafts and the studio has harnessed this by working with some of the best local craftspeople working with materials from ceramics to tatami, textile, bamboo and wood. The studio has worked with these materials and surfaces in new and unexpected ways, such as coloured tatami mats used as acoustic wall screens and room dividers by Yokoyama Tatami. Likewise, architectural bamboo structures hung from the ceiling subtly assist with zoning the space and establishing a more intimate atmosphere. For this, OEO Studio worked closely with a Tenugui maker and Copenhagen-based Natural Material Studio to create the illusion of an underwater kelp forest in the main dining room.