Lunch is a tall order at this Mexican restaurant
Tall Arquitectos has designed this cantilevered restaurant for a ravine four times the size of the Grand Canyon
To describe this building design as site-specific is an understatement. The proposal for a restaurant and cocktail bar overhanging a gargantuan canyon in Mexico is the work of young Mexican studio, Tall Arquitectos.
The trio, Lázaro Gutiérrez Cortina Sainz, Leonardo Montero Tello and Sebastián Gutiérrez Cortina Sainz, have conjured this jaw-dropping venue up on behalf of chef Maria Andrea Payne.
The proposed restaurant cantilevers out over Chihuahua’s Copper Canyon, which is four times bigger than the Grand Canyon in the US. It’s nestled in northwest Mexico’s Sierra Madre range, which is homeland to the Tarahumara tribe. The restaurant’s name, Biré Bitori, means ‘plate’ in the native language.
The entrance is marked by a reflecting pool, from where visitors would take a flight of stairs down to the restaurant area. Jutting alarmingly far out of the rock face, the two-storey concrete building has a glass floor, allowing visitors a vertical view down to the terrain 6,000ft below.
Large picture windows around three of the restaurant’s walls offer more conventional vistas of the famous Basaseachic Falls, while steel beams underpin the freestanding structure.
The chef’s intention is to devise a menu based on locally sourced products, for customers sitting at furniture created by local artisans.
Tall Arquitectos have proven they can build well, with their Auditorio Metepec and La Rosilla ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Now, they must prove that Biré Bitori would adhere to local planning regulations. A taller order? Perhaps.
For more on contemporary architecture of a slightly smaller scale consider Nanotecture; for more concrete creations consider this book; and for more on modernity and Mexican cuisine, consider Enrique Olvera’s Mexico from the Inside Out; Tacopedia; and Mexico the Cook Book.