Kuntrawant
Caffe
Location
Owner
DESIGNER
Produced by
LANA
KUNTRAWANT
BIQUADRA
KINDOFSPACE
Kuntrawant is a word that takes some explaining. It comes from the Vinschger dialect and means smuggling — derived from the Italian contrabbando. For decades, coffee was carried on foot over secret mountain paths from Switzerland into Italy, traded in the shadows of the Alps because it could not be bought any other way. That history is not decorative here. It is the reason the place exists and the logic that runs through every decision made inside it.
The Kuntrawant caffeehaus, designed by Merano-based studio Biquadra and completed in 2023, is a space built around the act of roasting rather than around the act of selling. A café with a visible roastery and a concept store integrated into the same floor plan, the interior is organised so that the drum roaster sits in full view of anyone sitting at the bar, not as spectacle but as context. What you are drinking was made here, by these hands, in this machine.
Biquadra takes that transparency seriously in the architecture: a material palette of raw surfaces and natural tones, nothing that competes with the warmth and smell of the roasting process itself. The design is a frame, not a statement.
