The creation of the Calf & Bloom café in Amsterdam required a root and branch design job – everything from concept to branding – and the job went to local firm concrete, who did an extremely solid job. Located between two streets and a canal, the design agency used the existing internal brickwork and a second artificial façade to create the feeling of a hidden piazzetta.

There is lots to admire internally, such as the parquet tables that rise from the slate grey floor, and particularly the huge dome pendant lights overhead, protruding in clusters from central columns, which look as though they might be harvesting thoughts, or making ready to suck up diners through the air conditioning system and off to a lab for experimentation at any moment. Of course that might just be me. Things get even spookier at night, when a purple glow permeates the dining space from the light boxes behind the large lettering of the restaurant’s internal Calf & Bloom sign; that unusual name is a product of the venue’s surroundings on the ground floor of the Kalvertoren (Calf Tower) shopping centre, near the Bloemenmarkt (flower market).