New Diner is a project by designer Matali Crasset for the Restaurante Solidário Baixa in Porto. Working with CASA and ACISJF, the two institutions that run the restaurant and provide daily meals as a social service, Crasset created an indoor kiosk, a site-specific intervention with two main goals: to strengthen the hospitality of the dining hall by bringing together the different activities that take place there, and to highlight human relationships by gently reactivating the atmosphere of the space.

Taking inspiration from the restaurant’s tiled walls, Crasset also designed graphic landscapes and imagined rituals that now animate the mirrors, further enriching the identity of the space.

New Diner is an invitation to the people of Porto to learn more about this restaurant, which, because of its spatial character, recalls a “diner”, an informal place to eat cheaply. The “new” points not only to a re-enchantment of the setting, but also to a broader idea of conviviality. It also means the restaurant becomes a meeting place for rest, sharing and choice.