A sweet treat: Oko Dessert Kitchen
Branding of Oko Dessert Kitchen.
The gleaming Carrara marble countertop is the star of the show.
Oko Dessert Kitchen offers speciality desserts, patisserie items, Mövenpick ice creams, coffee, tea and a full bar service.
The dominating seismic brace that runs through the space has been turned into a highlight to be celebrated.
The friendly staff at Oko, surrounded by the gold accents, cube shelves, wood and glass that make up the material palette of the restaurant.
Exterior of Oko Dessert Kitchen, tucked into a corner of Aotea Square, Auckland.
Studio Gascoigne’s Oko Dessert Kitchen is one of those easily missed spots. Tucked around the strangely postmodern Metro Entertainment Centre (on the northern side of Aotea Square) this hourglass-shaped interior takes punters from an outdoor seating area into a narrow corridor, where the counter/cooking station is, then flows onto a slightly larger seating area that connects into the Entertainment Centre.
The food station is open plan and looks something like a test kitchen, with mirrors on the ceiling so that all cooking – undertaken by award-winning dessert chefs – can be seen easily. The counter top is traditional baker’s marble – Carrara.
“It’s what the old French and Italian patisseries used to have. Sometimes you see these things in shops… and they’ve been kneading bread on them for 200 years and they’re just beautifully dished. We wanted to get that kind of feel here,” says Mark Gascoigne.
The striking marble, however, must compete with a brutal, accidental material: a seismic brace 600cm in diameter that diagonally ruptures through the ceiling, penetrates the counter and fully dissects views into the space.
“If you can’t hide something, you just highlight it – as if we wanted that to be there!” says Gascoigne.
The brace has been painted gold (muted, rather than shiny) and is surrounded by thin, cube-like shelves (also in gold), touches of bleached wood, glass and mirrors. Oko (the Maori name for small vessel) incorporates rather contemporary furniture pieces – mostly Simon James – giving this small, unexpectedly elegant space a strong tension between classic and futuristic.
