Space Copenhagen has completed the interiors for Casino dal 2026, a new all-day dining destination in central Copenhagen, created with restaurateurs Mikkel Egelund and Morten Kaltoft. Occupying 480 m² of interior space and a 340 m² courtyard garden, Casino brings together a deli, bar, restaurant, open kitchen and year-round pavilion within a distinctive 1920s modernist building clad in green marble, close to the Round Tower.
For Egelund and Kaltoft, restaurants are not merely places to eat but living, social environments, an idea Space Copenhagen translated into the project’s design language. Rather than creating a restaurant centred on a single room or experience, Casino is conceived as a collection of distinct yet interconnected spaces, each with its own character and rhythm, allowing the building to evolve from early morning to late at night.
There is no single way to arrive at Casino. Guests can enter through the deli and move gradually into the restaurant, arrive directly through the courtyard, or pass from the garden into the restaurant, allowing the experience of the space to unfold in different ways. The smallest and most informal part of Casino is Casino Deli, which sets the day’s first rhythm. Inspired by the democratic character of the classic Italian roadside café or autogrill, it is a place to start with an espresso, a cornetto, or freshly pressed juice, or simply to exchange a few words at the counter.
A 10 m-long bar forms the threshold between the deli and the restaurant. Rather than arriving at a conventional reception, guests enter directly into an active, inhabited part of the restaurant, where someone might be having a drink, waiting for a table, or simply passing through. The intention is for arrival to feel relaxed and immediate, received by the life of the place rather than by a formal gesture.
The scale of the bar also anchors the large interior, organising movement between the entrance, dining areas, kitchen and courtyard. Circulation, service routes, storage, workstations and the movements of guests and staff are carefully integrated so that the restaurant’s operational intensity never leads to visual or spatial disorder.
Beyond the bar, the room opens towards a deliberately visible, active kitchen with steel surfaces, where guests can watch the chefs at work. Facing the kitchen, a 12 m-long open counter holds seasonal ingredients piled into large antique earthenware bowls. The sounds and aromas of cooking become part of the atmosphere; food does not disappear behind the architecture but becomes part of the room
A monumental mural, commissioned together by Morten Kaltoft, Mikkel Egelund and Space Copenhagen, from Danish artist Tal R, forms the backdrop to the restaurant. Painted on a ground of gold leaf applied directly to the raw concrete wall, the intensely colourful and expressive work depicts an enormous deep-purple cat moving mischievously through a forest of oversized, flower-like trees. The mural is strange, seductive and slightly unruly, introducing an expressive counterpoint to the architecture.
Casino was never intended to feel as though it belonged to a particular interior trend, nor as if every element had been designed to arrive at a single, perfectly resolved expression. Instead, the atmosphere emerges through accumulation, contrast and a certain degree of apparent coincidence.
“We didn’t want Casino to feel too resolved or too designed. We find it more interesting to allow different periods, materials and objects to sit alongside one another and to let the space feel as though it has evolved over time. It should feel personal, instinctive and a little unexpected,” comments, Signe Bindslev Henriksen, co-founder of Space Copenhagen.
The sharp modernity of the existing building establishes one layer: raw concrete floors, strong geometries and large expanses of glazing framed in polished steel. Against this, Space Copenhagen introduced elements with very different associations and histories. Classical white tiles appear across the walls and the bar, while waiter stations in dark brown mahogany and Carrara marble bring weight and familiarity.
Timber chairs of different characters, including pieces from St. Leo and Hans J. Wegner chairs produced by HAY, sit alongside one another rather than forming a single furniture family. Overhead, pendant lights in embroidered white ceramic introduce a more romantic, classical expression against the harder architecture, while semi-transparent embroidered curtains soften the long façade facing the courtyard.
The courtyard forms another world within Casino and is an equally important part of the project. Surrounded by the building’s distinctive green marble façades, the garden is centred on a carefully detailed 200 m² pavilion that can open almost completely in warmer weather and close to become a sheltered, heated orangery as the seasons change.
Drawing inspiration from Milan’s hidden gardens and courtyards, the landscape is intended to feel as though it has grown into itself over time. Evergreen planting and trees provide the garden’s permanent structure, while seasonal flowers and plants bring changing colour, density and character throughout the year.
“What we liked about the idea of Casino was its ability to keep changing, from morning to evening and from one season to the next. The courtyard was especially important in that respect. We wanted it to feel generous and slightly hidden, somewhere that becomes richer as the planting grows and as people begin to make the place their own,” says Peter Bundgaard Rützou, co-founder of Space Copenhagen.
“We were interested in allowing different styles to co-exist without trying too hard to reconcile them. The intention was to create something personal rather than perfect, an interior that feels assembled through instinct, use and affection rather than prescribed by a single idea. For us, the idea of a contemporary bistro is ultimately connected to community: a place capable of bringing very different people together through the simple rituals of eating, drinking, meeting and spending time,” adds Bindslev Henriksen.
“Casino has been an opportunity to explore that idea at a larger, more complex scale than usual. Not as one room, one mood or one expression, but as a collection of places within a place. Somewhere to arrive in the morning and somewhere to leave late at night. And, hopefully, somewhere you find yourself wanting to return to” concludes Rützou.
Together, the interconnected spaces of Casino create a place designed to reveal itself gradually rather than all at once. As the light changes, the garden grows and different parts of Casino come to life throughout the day. Space Copenhagen has created an interior not simply to be seen, but to be inhabited, revisited, and allowed to acquire its own history over time.
