“Designing products that are in dialogue with food.”

BENDITAS (Ferran Gesa and Caterina Vianna) is a Barcelona based design studio specialised in what they call "furniture for food". The studio aims to create new products and services for the food sector from a unique point of view: designing products that are in dialogue with food.

What do you mean when you say “designing furniture for food”?

Designing furniture for food means designing objects and services that are not only for people, but also for the food itself. We wanted to play with the meaning of furniture, because we would see projects in and around the design world called ”furniture for public spaces,” ”furniture for the living area,” or ”furniture for the contract sector” … but we had never heard about furniture for food.

We design products and services that are in dialogue with food in order to spread a new message. Our clients are from the restaurant and catering sector who want to present their products in a personalised way, or furniture producers who want innovative designs and products with new utilities.

When creating Brot we realised that furniture at home is often thought of in a traditionally utilitarian way—the table is meant for eating, the sofa for resting, and the chair for sitting. In contrast, nowadays we work in the dining room, we eat at the sofa and we take naps in chairs. We also observed, for example, that restaurants create amazing setups for their food but they forget about its recipients. We work with restaurants and catering companies in order to offer a whole new way of understanding food, its space and its recipient. The recipient and the food should follow the same thread, as if the restaurant were a story. In this story, the elements of the space, the “garment,” and the statement come together.