ALEX Restaurant / BOV Estudio

Architects: BOV Estudio
Area: 198 m²
Year: 2024
Photography: Javier Bravo
Interior Design: BOV Estudio
Location: Miranda de Ebro, Castilla y León
Country: Spain

ALEX Restaurant is a hospitality interior in Miranda de Ebro conceived by BOV Estudio as a contemporary interpretation of the city’s industrial identity. Developed for chef Alejandro Serrano as his second restaurant, the project extends beyond conventional dining by bringing gastronomy into dialogue with art, design, music, and social interaction. Its architectural language draws from materials associated with Miranda de Ebro’s industrial past, including glass blocks, steel, concrete, and stainless steel. These elements establish a restrained setting in which the culinary experience remains central, while timber furniture and carefully considered lighting introduce a more delicate counterpoint to the harder surfaces. Flexibility is embedded in the furniture design, allowing the dining environment to accommodate different arrangements and respond to Serrano’s changing creative requirements. The project also maintains a direct connection with its locality through the involvement of artists, artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, and other contributors from the area. Within the otherwise controlled material palette, brightly colored restrooms provide a deliberate visual contrast. Together, these elements shape an adaptable social setting in which industrial references, local craft, cultural activity, and haute cuisine coexist.

The project reinterprets the city’s industrial memory through concrete, steel and glass block, while local artists and craftspeople helped create a flexible cultural setting in which gastronomy and social life become the protagonists.
Interview with César Buquerín, Irene González and Antonio Valverde of BOV Estudio

ALEX Restaurant begins with the industrial memory of Miranda de Ebro rather than with a conventional language of restaurant decoration. BOV Estudio looked to the factories that have shaped the city and translated their characteristic materials into an interior intended for a very different form of production. Glass blocks, steel, and concrete establish this connection, including a reference to the nearby industrial paper mill complex designed by engineer Eduardo Torroja.

Each material assumes a specific role within the restaurant. Glass blocks recall the translucent factory enclosures traditionally used to introduce daylight while maintaining privacy. Steel refers to the structural systems associated with industrial construction, bringing strength and visual precision to the interior. Concrete, a familiar presence within the surrounding built landscape, provides a solid and neutral foundation for the activities taking place around it. The material strategy allows Serrano’s culinary work to occupy the foreground. Rather than filling the restaurant with overt decorative elements, BOV Estudio uses a controlled architectural backdrop whose character emerges through texture, reflection, transparency, and the contrast between robust and more delicate components.

Wooden furniture introduces another scale to the space. Although simple in appearance, the pieces incorporate calculated details that support different configurations. Their adaptability enables the interior to change according to particular uses and experiences, supporting the broader intention for the restaurant to function as more than a fixed dining room. That flexibility reflects Serrano’s ambition for ALEX to operate as a cultural meeting point where food can intersect with visual art, music, people, and other forms of creative activity. The open character of the room consequently provides space for changing arrangements while maintaining a consistent architectural identity.

The relationship with Miranda de Ebro also extends to the project’s production. Artists, artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, and other participants involved in realizing the interior were local. Their involvement reinforces the connection between the restaurant and the city through the people and skills responsible for its construction, rather than through material references alone. Across the main dining areas, finishes and furnishings remain largely restrained, creating an open and balanced environment in which diners and gastronomy occupy the center of attention. The restrooms depart deliberately from this approach. Their stronger use of color introduces a concentrated visual interruption to the otherwise neutral palette, producing a distinct moment within the sequence of spaces.

The stainless-steel bar acts as the main focal point within the restaurant. Its reflective surface connects with the glass and metallic elements used throughout the interior, allowing light, movement, and changing activity to register across the material surfaces. Furniture and lighting provide a finer counterpoint, establishing a deliberate duality between industrial robustness and carefully resolved detail.

Through this combination, ALEX Restaurant remains capable of transformation rather than presenting itself as a fixed composition. The architecture provides the framework for a changing relationship between dining, cultural activity, and human interaction, using Miranda de Ebro’s industrial heritage as the foundation for a contemporary gastronomic environment.