Since its inception in 2022, the pop-up AWT Bar has become one of the most appreciated hubs of Art Week Tokyo. This year, the architect Kae Ito has been commissioned for the spatial design. Ito opened her independent firm Office Itokae in 2025 after ten years at the Pritzker Prize-winning firm Sanaa / Kazuyo Sejima & Associates in Tokyo, where she worked on notable projects like the Better Co-Being pavilion for Expo 2025 Osaka, the Inujima Landscape Project and myriad exhibition designs in Japan and abroad.
Her AWT Bar, titled Kuru Kuru, she says, is intended to evoke a “secret garden”. Ingenious openwork structures of stainless steel and acrylic are distributed throughout the space, their placement guided by a geometric design on the floor. Multimedia elements by the artist Nile Koetting further enliven the space.
Kae Ito worked at architecture practice Sanaa before opening her own firm, Office Itokae, in 2025 © Office Itokae
Ito recently spent time in Mongolia investigating ger, the traditional nomadic homes of the region, which are designed to be easily folded up and moved. Like those, Kuru Kuru is made of modular, collapsible elements, composed of rings and semi-circles, with a simple locking mechanism to render them stable. Colour-coded acrylic hemispheres have flat upper surfaces that form seats, tables or counters. These exquisitely fabricated units call to mind orreries or models of atoms. An aluminium-covered wall with circular service openings reinforces the science-lab vibe. Ito says, “I’m hoping [the bar] encourages people to have a happy time, eating and drinking with other visitors.”
Chef Ryuichi Yokomizo’s orchestration of the culinary experience at the AWT Bar is a sophisticated inversion of expectations. Following nine years at the Michelin-starred Joël Robuchon restaurant in Tokyo’s Ebisu district, the 30-year-old chef was asked to helm La & Le in Aoyama, which opened in March this year. For Art Week Tokyo, he is presenting two canapés: a gâteau of duck rillettes and pain d’épices, and a tarte tatin-inspired sablé.
Artist cocktails by Natsumi Aoyagi, Mariko Mori and Yoshihiro Suda and edible creations by La & Le are on the menu at this year’s AWT Bar © Saiki
These pleasantly deceiving creations display a beautiful autumnal colour palette, and reward the diner’s attention. The beautifully constructed savoury option layers duck rillettes over dark pain d’épices, finished with foie
gras mousse, a paper-thin slice of apple, caramelised walnuts and delicate sprigs of micro amaranth. The tarte reimagines the classic tarte tatin, layering deeply caramelised apple over a sablé Breton base, topped with a quenelle of calvados-infused buttercream and artfully placed micro celery. Each masquerades as its opposite: the savoury rillettes appear at first glance to be a dessert, while the sweet tarte appears savoury.
“I’m deeply interested in the element of surprise in cuisine,” Yokomizo says. “My theme for Art Week Tokyo, Entre, centres on the Japanese ideas of tsunagu—to connect—and aida—the space between,” he says. “Like art, cuisine changes with one’s point of view. I hope to show how simply changing the angle of approach can transform eating into an entirely different experience. I believe that sharing good food and drink in this way can foster deeper communication.”
The artist-devised cocktails on offer are similarly inventive. Mariko Mori’s All That Shinesuses luminous kuzumochi spheres, tapioca balls and rose caviar to evoke “the invisible ripples that are sent out into the world as our souls interact”. For Part-Time Job, Yoshihiro Suda reached back into his past as an illustrator for cider and whisky brands to make a cocktail as bittersweet as his memories. Natsumi Aoyagi’s sudsy Caipirinha de Cinco Sabões (Caipirinha of Five Soaps) is accompanied by a fable that alludes to the drink’s historical rural Brazilian roots. Combining uniquely ambitious design, cuisine and cocktails, the AWT Bar promises an unforgettable multisensory experience.
• AWT Bar, Art Week Tokyo, 4-8 November