In new Japanese-Spanish restaurant Ando, Brewin Design Office abstracts Hong Kong city’s man-made textures and forms into a bold, brutalist interior. Urban centres can manifest glitz and glamour, glass and bright lights, dreams and facades. But they also embody decay, flux, concrete structures and shadows. 

Located in Lan Kwai Fong, this 30-seater restaurant is led by Argentinian chef Agustin Balbi, who comes from a Spanish and Italian family. Balbi, who previously helmed Japanese restaurant HAKU, reflects these amalgamated roots in his cuisine with dishes like Ajo Blanco, a Spanish chilled almond soup, accented with ingredients like kombu and shrimp. Similarly, Cheng, founder of Singapore-based Brewin Design Office, eschewed distinct gastronomic themes, instead distilling this hybridity into a minimalist, textured space inspired by context.

‘For us, a foreign design team less familiar with Hong Kong, the Lan Kwai Fong and Central area epitomises the densest urban environment, layered and fully fabricated and man-made,’ says Cheng, who trained and worked as an architect before founding his multidisciplinary practice. Cheng says he imagined the restaurant as a ‘slice’ of the city, represented by materials like rough concrete, raw and bush-hammered stone, and patinated metal, with robust forms that appear cast and carved from these surfaces.