Arepa Café — Venezuelan urbanity
Toronto, Canada.
Arepa Café was a 1,800-square-foot Venezuelan restaurant created in Toronto as a place of food, culture and belonging.
Founded and developed as an independent hospitality business, the project brought together concept development, interior design, branding, operations and guest experience within a single vision.
At the centre of the concept was the arepa—a simple food capable of carrying memory across borders. Its circular form informed the visual identity, while its preparation and sharing became part of the restaurant’s social experience.
The interior drew from Venezuelan popular culture and memory, including the graphics of Harina P.A.N., the silhouette of El Ávila and the figure of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández. These references were reinterpreted through murals, objects, colour, typography and spatial details to create a contemporary expression of Venezuelan identity in Toronto.
Every aspect of the café, from its interior and visual identity to menus, service and operations, was developed as part of the same experience.
The space became a meeting point for Venezuelans reconnecting with home, Canadians discovering the culture for the first time, and other immigrants who recognized something familiar in the experience of building a place between cultures.
Arepa Café was both a design project and an operating business. Over nearly eleven years, it provided direct experience in the relationship between hospitality design, customer behaviour, operations, brand identity and commercial performance.
This experience became an important foundation for N-DO’s current work across interiors, advisory and product development.
Material Reuse Study
Lampshades developed from discarded Harina P.A.N. cornmeal packaging explored how an everyday business material could be transformed into a functional object through repetition, assembly and reuse.
Featured in Toronto Life, “Trashed and Wasted.”
Project: Arepa Café
Type: Full-Service Restaurant and Cultural Hospitality
Size: 1,800 sq. ft.
Location: Toronto, Canada
Years: 2009–2019
Role: Founder, Interior Designer and Creative Lead
Scope: Business conception, interior design, visual identity, branding, guest experience, community engagement and operations
Status: Completed
Type: Full-Service Restaurant and Cultural Hospitality
Size: 1,800 sq. ft.
Location: Toronto, Canada
Years: 2009–2019
Role: Founder, Interior Designer and Creative Lead
Scope: Business conception, interior design, visual identity, branding, guest experience, community engagement and operations
Status: Completed
