BOA BIFANA

Portuguese Bakery and Café. Lisbon.
Concept design. 2025.

The Bifana is a Portuguese delicacy, a pork sandwich slow cooked in stock and served in a bun. Our client’s concept was to transform a unit on the ground floor of an C.18th building in central Lisbon into a dedicated Bifana Café.

The building footprint dictated a limited number of patrons could be seated at any one time. In order to maximise sales during busy hours but maintain a social setting in quieter periods we developed a seating plan that uses foldable wall mounted benches. This seating format is repeated in rows that fill the walls of the space. Some of the fold down surfaces become tables for standing and eating, others act as pedestals for ornaments, plants and musical equipment.
For inspiration we referenced the famous Portuguese ceramic tile and its 3×3 arrangement. This led to the wall furniture layout and our brand language, both integrated into the architectural design.

The concept responds to consumer traffic flow and demand, and programmed social events that can take advantage of reconfigurable space.