Eat Drink Design at Dutch Design Week 2008

For the third year in a row, Eat Drink Design presents a new project that will provide a culinary impulse to Dutch Design Week, which will be held from 18 - 26 October in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. World-class chefs and designers will be joined together as couples in order to design their own Signature Snack; something that will carry both of their trademarks. Furthermore, Eat Drink Design will be opening a nine-day exhibition featuring new work by (inter)national designers and which will also include a restaurant where Sot-l'y-laisse will be preparing an exclusive Dutch Design Diner every evening.

Signature Snacks
Eat Drink Design has enticed seven chefs at renowned restaurants in and around Eindhoven and seven designers to work together as couples in order to design an actual Signature Snack. The question is whether the synergy between the designer and the chef will result in more than just a nicely presented plate of food.

What will happen when designer Kiki van Eijk and chef van Groeninge from restaurant Avant Garde combine their trademarks (respectively ceramics and spring chicken slowly cooked in clay)? How will authentic Italian Ristorante Da Nello and designer Christien Meindertsma convert their signatures into a collective snack? In what way will Restaurant 1910 and Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta (Drift) apply the latest production techniques to food? What will you get when a French/Dutch restaurant (De Karpendonkse Hoeve) mixes in a touch of Letland (the birthplace of Mara Skujeniece)? Will the shape mould itself to the content, or the other way around, in the snack by KB 23 en Maarten Baptist? How will Gerard Wollerich en Dinie van den Heuvel translate culinary and fashion trends? Will the Treeswijkhoeve be able to design a 'no screw, no glue' dish with Joost van Bleiswijk?

The assignment is not an easy one: in addition to being beautifully presented and delicious, these haute cuisine snacks will also have to be easy to produce. Visitors to the Dutch Design Week will be able to buy Signature Snacks 'straight from the vending machine' on Lichtplein square right behind the Design Academy. During the week, they will also be presented on the menu of the participating restaurants.

Pop-up Restaurant with an Exhibition
Just as in the previous years, Eat Drink Design will be presenting a free exhibition featuring lots of work by (inter)national designers. This year it will be accommodated in a vacant store at Catharinaplein 27, near to the Designhuis. Designers such as Anke Weiss, Sander Lucas and Carolien Niebling will be presenting their new work at Eat Drink Design. One of the eye catchers of the exhibition will be the kitchen of industrial designer Fred van Gelderen (Serious Kitchen). This is where Edwin Severijn (Sot-l'y-laisse) will be preparing the exclusive Dutch Design Diner, a full evening's entertainment. The restaurant is part of the exhibition. Guests will be seated on Bouroullec chairs, eating from a dinner service designed specially by Mara Skujeniece, drinking from water glasses by Isabelle Scholtemeijer and using napkins by Christien Meindertsma. In the evening, only sixteen guests can be served, but in the daytime visitors can come in and view the exhibition and/or to enjoy a Signature Snack, an espresso or a glass of sparkling wine.

Eat Drink Design in Previous Years
Eat Drink Design is an initiative of design studio Moon/en/co and culinary phenomenon Sot-l'y-laisse and was organised for the first time during the Dutch Design Week of 2006.

Annemoon Geurts, Koen Rijnbeek and Edwin Severijn want to offer people an inspiring experience, centred on the idea of: eating at long tables covered with design products, looking, tasting and enjoying an unexpected encounter.

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