Best Dining Experience: Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021

MDF Italia

Designers shaped up to a changing landscape last year, outlining new ways to stay at home in style, and in the dining room, geometric silhouettes were the order of the day. Pritzker Prize-winner Jean Nouvel’s elegantly monolithic ‘NVL’ dining table is the French architect’s second project for MDF Italia (following on from his ‘Super_Position’ bookcase) and is a harmonious lesson in contrasts, appearing both sleek, light and minimalist, while also very sturdy and strong.

 Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021

Artek

A synthesis of contrasts is at the heart of Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s ‘Rope’ dining chair for Artek, which pairs a solid frame with flexible elements, matching up steel tubes with pliable robe armrests and backrests to invite postural creativity.

Flos

Casting a seductive light over our dream dining scene is the ‘Episode 2’, Vincent Van Duysen’s update of his original ‘Infra-Structure’ lighting series for Flos. This system follows an industrial aesthetic, taking its cues from the Bauhaus and allowing for playfully twisted combinations, compositions and configurations on infinite levels.

Tom Dixon

The playfulness continues at the table with Tom Dixon’s contemporary cocktail glassware, which pairs a satisfyingly thick base reminiscent of ice hockey pucks with elegant geometric forms, such as cylinders, cones and spheres. The collection creates a stylish set of consummate companions for our cocktails – Martinez (red), featuring vermouth, maraschino liqueur, angostura bitters and orange, Gin & Tonic, and Magic Number (orange), featuring pink grapefruit juice, cardamom syrup and passion fruit pulp – all crafted using Berry Bros & Rudd’s No.3 London Dry Gin. We’ll drink to that.