The designers have cleverly used the staple characteristics of a typical tapas bar by deconstructing them and subtly incorporating them into their design. The tapas-bar counter has been remade into a long bar table with stools and an adjacent food display counter while the wine bottle array, another tapas-bar staple usually found behind the bar, has been transformed into a sleek display recessed into the wooden wall panelling (also inspiring the minimal steel-tube shelving hanging in the waiting area). The Spanish undertones have then been complemented by a Viennese coffee house aesthetic seen in several reproduction paintings of early 20th-century European art—Egon Schiele’s portraits of his wife, Amadeo Modigliani’s “Ritratto di una giovane donna” and Henri Rousseau’s “Equatorial jungle” and “Village street scene”— coupled with the glass-sphere chandeliers and the round tables in the front space overlooking the street.

Ceramic tiles, used selectively as floor and wall tiling, feature organic shapes which have been “bleached” of their typical vibrant Spanish colours into a tone of grey in order to blend in with the rest of the interiors. Other features such as the small trees sprouting though the bar table and the wine barrel at the entrance reinforce the Mediterranean aesthetic, whereas vertical slated screens and porcelain plates in white and blue patterns introduce a Chinese aesthetic —bringing this sweeping design journey from Andalusia through to Austria full circle back to Taiwan.