Preta Maria opened in São Paulo in 2026. Estudio Guto Requena designed the restaurant with architects Gabriela de Matos and Mateus Fraga, using Afro-Brazilian culture as the starting point for its spaces, materials and commissioned details. The project draws on Afrofuturism to bring craft and digital fabrication into the same room.

The circular dining room is the spatial centre of the restaurant. A bamboo dome draws the eye above the tables and gives the room a shared focus. The curved enclosure changes how diners relate to the centre and to one another, while the visible bamboo makes the construction part of the experience of sitting beneath it.

Earth, pigmented concrete and stone give the dining room a heavier register below the light canopy. A bar in blue agate introduces a contrasting colour and surface. Computer-cut details sit alongside those materials, using precision fabrication to give the project’s graphic elements a physical place within the interior.

The courtyard gives the restaurant a second kind of room, with planting and seating under open sky. Its scale and light offer a contrast to the concentrated geometry of the dining hall. Together they show where the design has the most to say: in the transition between two different settings for gathering, and in the way ordinary elements such as a bar, a canopy and a table carry the story.

Cover photograph: André Klotz. Project source and images · Studio portfolio.