Slipped under the South-West Corner of the hotel to greet the thousands of tourists approaching from Helgoland’s main pier sits ABA’s 120sm bistro, a two storey teardrop shaped glass pod. The entrance to the bistro is framed by a smaller, metal-clad pod which is the hotel’s main retail shop.

Inside the Bistro a mezzanine hovers over the glazed space, hardly touching its four supporting columns with a 3m cantilever at one end. The communal starfish/flower table which sits under the hole in the mezzanine at the centre of the main bistro level has been ‘kidnapped’ to become the hotel logo.