Dining Among the Clouds

Foglia d'Oro. Private client.

The ask was a dining in the sky experience. We took it further than altitude and built the sky itself: painted cloud across three walls, cloud banked along the floor, and a dark plinth carrying a long white top so the table reads as floating rather than standing.

The arrangement runs the full length of the table and is designed to be read from both sides, which is harder than it sounds. A one-sided run hides its working from the guest opposite. This one has no back, so every face of it had to hold.

Over seventy varieties go into it, moving through colour as the run travels: oxblood carnations into coral, marigold and orange lilies, then green ammi and hydrangea, ochre grasses, rose hips, pampas, dried fern. Fresh and dried worked into the same line, which is what gives the run its range and its texture.

At one end we let it break. Dried asparagus fern spills off the table edge and down onto the cloud floor, so the arrangement stops looking placed and starts looking like it grew there.

Plates and glass stay plain throughout. In a room this saturated, the table setting should be the quietest thing on it.