Isern Serra Designs Cozy, Culinary-Focused Offices in Spain

Project Info

Project Name: Plate Selector Headquarters

Architecture & Interior Design: Isern Serra Studio

Client/Owner: Plate Selector

Location: Barcelona, Spain

In the heart of Barcelona, Isern Serra has taken the familiar idea of an office and reimagined it as something warmer, more personal—a space where creativity, kitchen culture, and comfort intertwine. For Plate Selector, a fast-growing content creation agency anchored in gastronomy, the brief was simple in spirit but rich in challenge: build an office that feels like home, centered around food, people, and shared experiences.

Cooking Up the Concept

Plate Selector isn’t just about food content—it’s about the stories, the textures, the senses. The founders (Alba Yañez, Khaled Abbas, and Juan Navaza) live and breathe culinary aesthetics, and having worked with Isern Serra before, they invited the studio to bring that internal culture into physical form. The design philosophy grew around three key ideas:

+ The kitchen as heart — not a peripheral amenity, but the sculptural core of the space.

+ Warmth and belonging — an atmosphere of ease, comfort, and well-being.

+ Growth and time — reflecting how the company has matured over ten years, preserving memory and adding craft.

Isern Serra's design uses warm, neutral tones and natural materials to create a serene, home-like atmosphere perfect for collaboration and relaxation

Designing the Kitchen as Sculpture

The first—and perhaps boldest—move was placing the kitchen at the centre of the offices. But it’s not a generic pantry or break room: instead, Isern Serra designed a dominant central island made of Alicante red marble, which becomes a visual anchor. Its weight and colour contrast sharply with the softer, linen-toned surfaces that fill the rest of the office.

This island is more than showpiece. It’s a hub for circulation, collaboration, and community. Staff move through it; impromptu conversations happen around it; energy flows through it. It’s both functional—a high-performance workspace—and symbolic: a piece of art, a gathering point, a reminder of what Plate Selector values.

The red marble kitchen island is the heart of the office, acting as a sculptural centerpiece that brings people together

Palette, Texture, Atmosphere

Beyond kitchen and marble, the space feels deliberately gentle. Linen hues, warm neutrals, natural materials, and soft textures give the open-plan workspace a calm, almost domestic character. Shelving holds decorative objects—artisan-made, personal mementos—bringing in an intimacy that the word “office” rarely carries.

Meeting rooms reveal another layer: curved arches framing entrances, terracotta hues referencing the kitchen’s red marble, creating moments of enclosure and warmth. In rest or lounge zones, furniture with soft geometry—triangles, blocks, rounded forms—offers places to pause, reflect, and connect. Light pours in through high ceilings; daylight is treated as a material, shaping moods and shapes.

The office's aesthetic balances function and beauty, with a minimalist design that feels both refined and personal

Reflections of Growth & Functionality

The office isn’t lavish for its own sake: almost every choice has functional purpose. The central kitchen island serves workflow; worktables are spaced for comfort; breaks are designed into the circulation. Yet through all this, there’s an unmistakable craftsmanship: solidity in the marble, elegance in the form, and coherence in theme.

Moreover, Isern Serra shows how workplace design can celebrate a company’s journey. Through material choices, layout, and detail, there’s a sense that Plate Selector has grown—not by simply adding more desks, but by refining its identity. Time is visible: aged textures, tactile surfaces, juxtapositions of the new and the reused, memories made tangible.

Open shelving filled with curated objects adds a personal touch, reflecting the company's identity and journey

Why This Matters

Plate Selector’s offices are more than pretty interiors. They illustrate several lessons worth noting in the changing world of work:

+ Identity Matters: Spaces that reflect company culture can foster belonging, pride, and productivity.

+ Design with Intention: Every design choice—from material to layout—conveys value. Here, warmth, craftsmanship, and community are visible.

+ Function + Beauty: The two need not conflict. The kitchen-sculpture is both useful and symbolic.

+ Comfort as Productivity: Homeliness, natural materials, and light all contribute to well-being, which in turn supports better work.

+ Growth Embodied: Offices aren’t static. Good design lets them show evolution, heritage, and vision.

Plate Selector’s new headquarters proves that the workspace is not just where work happens—it can be where identity lives, where community gathers, where the ritual of food becomes part of everyday flow. In crafting a home from marble, linen, light, and shared meals, Isern Serra has done more than design an office—they have cooked up a place where people want to stay a while.