Urban Eco Dinner for Nike

date: 2005
location: Droog Amsterdam

In order to have a better understanding of the European market and consumer, Nike brought a team from the United States over to Amsterdam. At Droog they had a ‘brain picking’ dinner with Dutch creatives like Renny Ramakers, Gijs Bakker, Joris Laarman, Frank Tjepkema, Jacob van Reys, Pjotr de Jong, Aaron Betsky, Edith Gruson, Elly Uytenbroek and Ted Noten.

Nike’s recent focus is on the ecological side of design. Therefore designer Marije Vogelzang prepared an Urban Eco Dinner. This puts a positive view on morbid growth in the city, on so-called inferior ingredients/materials and on ecological design.

As a starter they had several bowls with different kinds of soup made of various sorts of urban weeds (stinging nettle soup, wild spinach soup, sourish soup), served with sourdough bread. The main course was fried, marinated pigeon with glazed leek and urban honey, mashed potatoes and urban salad with edible flowers, served on weeds-tableware. The desert was white chocolate mousse with jasmine served on plates made of sugar.

Apart from the delicious dinner, the meeting of the Nike team and the Dutch creatives was very nutritious as well. The lively and interesting discussion not only gave Nike a taste of Dutch design, but was also inspirational for the Dutch dinner guests.