Alejandro Barrios Carrero

The Path

Alejandro Barrios Carrero’s work as proprietor of ABC reads in terms of space-making: atmosphere, flow, and the way a room is organized for use. The discipline is visible in the details that shape experience after service begins and after it ends, when the last glass is cleared and the room has to hold its own.

The Work Today

At Juvia, an award-winning Miami restaurant design inspired by the city's nature and architecture, the design language ties setting to feeling. The city’s brightness is translated into interiors that do more than frame a meal; they shape the room’s mood. In Juvia, Miami’s contours are not referenced from a distance but worked into the experience itself. Sushi Garage in Miami Beach shows the same approach moving into another context without losing balance. The work adapts to a different setting while keeping proportion, identity, and rhythm intact. It is a design method that changes with the room and still reads as Alejandro’s. “I don’t like designing alone,” he has said, and the line fits a practice built on collaboration. These restaurants appear to be shaped through dialogue among architecture, hospitality, and the people who eventually use the space. The result is not a single-note statement, but a room formed through exchange.

In Their Words “One of the most valuable concepts I learned at Parsons was how to bring the outside in and the inside out.” That idea points to a practice that treats the boundary between interior and exterior as active rather than fixed. The room is designed with permeability in mind, so the surroundings remain part of the experience. “I come up with a concept by inventing a story about what the spaces want to be and why.” The method is narrative before it is resolved in plan or finish. A space is first treated as something with purpose and behavior, then shaped from that premise. Design begins with that listening.

Acclaim

Alejandro's honors include James Beard Foundation Outstanding Restaurant Design Award. The recognition reflects work that joins concept, place, and experience with enough control that the room reads clearly from first impression to last departure.