FoodInSpace Awards 2025: A Global Look at How We Design the Places Where We Dine

The FoodInSpace Awards have quickly become one of the most relevant international competitions in the hospitality and dining-design world – a place where architects, interior designers, branding studios, and creatives explore one powerful idea: how food and space shape each other.

In 2025, the Awards brought together projects from across the globe, spotlighting restaurants, cafés, bakeries, hotels, bars, and hybrid spaces that are redefining what dining looks and feels like today.

This year, I had the honor of serving on the international jury panel among 38 respected professionals. Being invited to evaluate projects that challenge the traditional definition of “the dining experience” was one of the most creatively energizing moments of my year – and a meaningful milestone in my professional journey as a table stylist and design-driven creative.

What the FoodInSpace Awards Recognize

As part of the global web-magazine FoodInSpace, the Awards celebrate excellence and originality in food and beverage design worldwide. The structure is intentionally comprehensive:

• Concept categories, including bakery, bar, bistro, hotel dining, ice-cream parlors, fast-casual restaurants, cafés, and more.
• Space categories, honoring lighting, color design, materials, surfaces & finishes, murals & graffiti, flooring, furniture-contract, biophilic design, and other elements that shape atmosphere.

What makes the competition unique is that it can honor the full scope of a restaurant interior – or a single design decision such as lighting, materiality, or color strategy. A project might win for its entire space, but a powerful concept can also be recognized on its own.

Participation is open internationally which creates a genuinely global viewpoint of how the world is thinking about dining.

A Jury with a Wide Lens

The 2025 jury brought together professionals from varied corners of design, food, hospitality, lighting, and creative industries. Architects, interior designers, creative directors, hospitality consultants, and branding experts all evaluated projects through their distinct lens.

I represented Fine Dining 4 Home, bringing a perspective rooted in home dining, mood creation, and the emotional experience of gathering.

Serving on the jury wasn’t about assessing floorplans or analyzing renderings. The principal criteria were Creativity, Innovation, Aesthetics, and Wow-Factor. It was about translating ambience, storytelling, ritual, material choices, and human connection into a global design conversation – the themes at the heart of my own work. Because when designers imagine new dining spaces, they ultimately ask the same questions I ask when styling a table at home:

• How does lighting change the mood?
• What textures feel grounding or energizing?
• How do materials age and soften with time?
• What spatial rhythm encourages people to linger, talk, and enjoy the meal?

It was striking (and affirming) to see how closely the principles of hospitality design mirror the principles of thoughtful home dining. The language of hospitality – light, texture, flow, rhythm – works the same everywhere, whether in a restaurant or a home.

Why These Awards Matter

For designers, a FoodInSpace Award is more than recognition – it positions their work within a global conversation about the future of dining spaces. For hospitality brands, the winners often forecast the aesthetic and experiential trends that will influence restaurant design in the coming years – from material palettes to lighting philosophies. For guests and consumers, these projects shape how dining will look and feel – the atmospheres that create memory and emotional connection. For me personally, serving on this jury reinforced something essential to my work at Fine Dining 4 Home: dining is not just about what is served – it’s about the experience created around it. Design shapes emotion. Atmosphere shapes connection. Whether in a beautifully designed restaurant or around a home table, the intention behind the experience is what people remember.

A Closer Look at Standout Winners

While the full list of winners showcases remarkable diversity, a few projects stood out to me personally for their clarity, execution, and the way they shape the dining experience through design. Each of these spaces demonstrates a strong identity – not built through trends or decoration, but through deliberate choices in material, lighting, and atmosphere.

Brasa Negra – Steakhouse & Grill Winner (Puebla, Mexico)

What drew me to this project is how confidently it sits within its category: you immediately understand what kind of experience it offers. It feels focused, strong, and intentionally framed around the idea of fire and grill culture – not as a theme, but as a clear identity. As someone who thinks a lot about atmosphere around food, I appreciated how Brasa Negra feels both contemporary and rooted in place.

The Cut & Craft – Luxury Winner (Manchester, UK)

What I like about this project is that its sense of “luxury” feels precise rather than loud. The restaurant occupies a historic banking hall, and the design responds to that context with intention. You can see a strong design narrative and a high level of execution, but it still feels like a place where people can actually relax and enjoy a meal – not just look around. That balance between refinement and hospitality is exactly what modern luxury should be.

Il Corso – Club Winner (Vyshhorod, Ukraine)

Although Il Corso is this year’s Club category winner, it is fundamentally a restaurant – one thoughtfully integrated into the setting of a local tennis club. For me, Il Corso stands out for how it handles energy and flow between open seating, social zones, and the surrounding club context. As someone with Ukrainian roots, seeing a Ukrainian project recognized in an international competition carried personal meaning – and Il Corso truly earned its place.

Scala – Flooring & Wallcoverings Winner (Istanbul, Turkey)

What I admired most is how the restaurant manages to feel both modern and timeless. The palette is warm and cohesive, the lighting is controlled, and the atmosphere feels intentionally layered. It’s one of those spaces where the design supports the dining experience rather than competing with it.

The Meat & Wine Co – Surfaces & Finishes Winner (Sidney, Australia)

What stood out to me about The Meat & Wine Co is how the space uses texture, color, lighting and pattern to build a narrative around heritage and contemporary dining. The lighting strategy is especially thoughtful – focused pools of warm light carve out intimate dining zones within a larger floor plan, reinforcing the restaurant’s identity as a modern steakhouse with a strong sense of place.

What 2025 Projects Reveal About Global Dining Design

Reviewing more than 250 submissions revealed clear patterns across geography, category, and cuisine:

• A strong, readable identity – these spaces know exactly who they serve and how they want guests to feel.
• Lighting used as a design tool, not decoration – the most successful projects build atmosphere through controlled, intelligent lighting choices. Custom fixtures, layered temperatures, and sculptural forms increasingly define both function and mood.
• Material integrity – stone, wood, textiles, metal are used not as trends, but as expressions of identity, often doing more narrative work than any decorative element. Sustainability isn’t highlighted; it’s integrated.
• Cultural storytelling expressed through materials, not motifs – instead of literal symbols or themed decor, designers communicate heritage through texture, palette, craftsmanship, and spatial rhythm.
• Flexible, multi-use spaces – cafés that become wine bars. Bakeries that double as retail. Restaurants designed for daytime work and evening socializing. Adaptability is no longer optional.
• Acoustic & sensory comfort – modern dining design goes beyond how a space looks. It’s also about how it feels and sounds. So many projects this year used soft surfaces, rounded shapes, and intimate zoning to create calmer, cocoon-like atmospheres.
• Warm minimalism and quiet confidence – a shift away from visual noise toward spaces that feel composed, calm, and experiential. Calmness is becoming a design value.
  

As a table stylist, it was inspiring to see how principles I work with at the home table (light, texture, intention, atmosphere) are equally essential at the architectural scale. The purpose is the same: to design a space where people want to gather, stay, and connect.

Iryna Kolosvetova (Founder & Creative Director, Fine Dining 4 Home)