Basalt, cork and thatch shape Jeju restaurant in Vancouver

A hand-thatched reinterpretation of a traditional Jeju Island house sits at the centre of Jeju, a 44-seat Korean restaurant in Vancouver designed by Canadian studio &Daughters. The studio built the compact structure, known as a chogajip, from lumber and hand-thatched grass, making it the artisanal focal point of the room.

The design brief started not with a floor plan but with a menu. Chef Dylan Kim developed the restaurant's modern dishes, his mother, chef Myungseok "Julie" Suh, created the traditional ones, and some dishes they developed together. "The restaurant exists in the space where these two narratives meet," &Daughters principal Emma Sims told Dezeen.

"We began to think of tradition and reinterpretation as the foundation for the design, translating this relationship into a physical space through a specific set of people, places, materials and traditions," Sims said.

What does the interior look like?

From the street, Jeju reads as contemporary: a modern steel-mesh facade fronts the building. Inside, the studio shifted toward warmth, juxtaposing wood and concrete for a more tactile feel.

The palette is deliberately narrow. "The palette is quite simple – basalt, cork, raw concrete masonry units, polished concrete, wood and thatch," Sims said. Basalt covers the bar, chef's table and host stand. Cork cladding softens surfaces and dampens sound. The studio kept the existing concrete floor but polished it, revealing natural variations in its colour.

Basalt carries particular weight in the project's logic. "Basalt is one of the most recognisable materials of Jeju Island," Sims said. "Formed through volcanic activity, it is found throughout the island's landscape, architecture and traditional stone walls. Beyond that, we were interested in materials that felt direct and unrefined, allowing them to retain their natural character."

How does tradition enter a modern room?

The studio wanted to "introduce elements of tradition, ritual and memory into the interior," Sims said. The thatched chogajip is one such element. Another is a jeongnang, a three-pole gate traditional to Jeju Island.

"Historically used as a means of communicating whether a household was home, away or nearby, it offered an alternative to a conventional locked entrance, rooted in trust and shared understanding," Sims explained.

Rather than treating the gate as decor, &Daughters made it functional. Staff lower two poles in the glazing beside the entrance each day to signal the restaurant is open, then raise them at the end of service. "In this way, a traditional architectural element becomes an active part of the restaurant's daily life," Sims said.

The project joins a run of materially driven restaurant interiors across Canada and beyond, including a brick-clad eatery in London's Soho by Box 9 and a Montreal bistro influenced by Japanese metabolism. For &Daughters, the approach shows how a menu's dual authorship — mother and son, tradition and reinterpretation — can translate directly into a room's material choices and daily rituals.