Kindling

The latest and most technically ambitious collaborative project combining the decades of knowledge and experience shared between Adam Markowitz and Ruth Allen has made its way to Vue de Monde Executive Chef Hugh Allen’s new restaurant, Yiaga. Following the success of Kindling at Melbourne Design Week’s 100 Lights and the Clarence Prize, the next brilliantly curling edition of this glass and timber series finds its permanent home in a contemporary fine dining setting.

Situated within the lush surrounds of East Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens, Yiaga is the latest identity held by the single-story dining venue that has existed within the historic site since 1908, when it was established as a tearoom. Known previously as The Pavillion, this newly refurbished site now presents as a refined, detail-focused fine dining restaurant, devoted to showcasing the very best of what Australian produce can provide. This ethos of ‘championing local’ extends further to the building’s design, which brings the surrounding landscape into the focus of every dining experience and combines it with high-quality interior furnishings and fixtures made by acclaimed skilled hands of Australian craftspeople.

Ruth and Adam’s contribution towards Yiaga’s display of local artisanal excellence takes the form of a bespoke pendant commissioned for the restaurant’s private dining room. Inspired by the centuries-old wood blocks used to shape molten glass, this second edition in the Kindling series again unifies two mediums with a storied and interwoven history. An elegant design combining the smooth, rich, dark tones of Tasmanian Blackwood with the glowing transparency of molten glass, hot blown forms weave and drape over the smooth timber and play with the room’s gentle, warm light. The form is filled with movement and life that mirrors the process of its making, and its design boldly displays the charred fingerprints from the process of making; the surface of the timber becoming blackened and receded where molten glass touches and fire burns.

Collaboration with Adam Markowitz, 2025
Commissioned by Wardle Studio for Yiaga, documentation by Jason Loucas