La Foresta
An interactive dining environment where guests forage, select, and share ingredients before dining together.
2025
Year
Experience Designer
Role
Experience Design
Category
3 Weeks
Duration
Problem
Restaurants usually have their guests as passive recipients of a finished product, limiting connection between them and the food from the process to the creation. The experience is transactional rather than relational, with little understanding of how ingredients move from source to plate. At the same time, shared meals are increasingly marked by distraction; diners turn to their phones instead of one another. What was once a social ritual becomes parallel isolation, with limited engagement between people at the table.
Solution
La Foresta reframes dining as a shared activity. Guests move through a designed sequence of foraging zones, gathering ingredients that are later prepared tableside by a private chef taking them through their culinary craft. By participating in selection and handoff, diners become part of the culinary process. The shared act of gathering and preparing builds connection between guests while deepening awareness of ingredients, sourcing, and craft.
Experience Overview
We staged a low-fidelity, embodied prototype of the foraging and palate-building sequence, guiding participants through ingredient selection at a shared table. The exercise allowed us to test pacing, interaction, and social dynamics in real time, evaluating how participation could foster engagement and conversation.
My Role - Experience Designer & Project Manager
I led the development of the guest journey, translating the concept into structured experience maps, floor plans, and defined interaction points. Alongside overall project coordination, I produced 2D visual assets and aligned spatial sequencing, user flow, and team output to ensure the experience was coherent from narrative through implementation.
Pitch Deck
See Also
