It must be a little bittersweet to complete an interior design project for a restaurant – you hand over your baby to its adoptive parents and then to all intents and purposes disappear. The owner of Dit and Dit Ook, two venues separated only by the width of a street in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, have teamed up with the good folk at Studio Boot to present their latest foodie wonder.

Mariapaviljoen, also in Den Bosch, is to be found in the Grand Ziekengasthuis; the city’s former sanatorium, and as such is a place for those with a sense of humour and a strong stomach thanks to the somewhat non-interventionist approach of the designers. They have kept many of the clinic’s period fixtures (chairs), re-purposed others (stretchers as tables), and even some of the anatomically informative décor has survived. The hospital site has been attracting visitors since the 13th Century, and the long history of the venue has been alluded to with the Dickensian candlesticks that grace each table. Don’t worry if the atmosphere gets too much and you feel a little faint, there’s alcohol available to go with the food, and a claim that it’s purely for medicinal purposes might actually work in this place…

Photography, Petra Janssen at Studio Boot