Photography by Lucy Gauntlett

Treehouses are one of our very favorite things. And The Yellow Treehouse Restaurant, just north of Auckland, New Zealand, offers diners a unique treehouse experience. Wrapped around a Redwood, this small eatery serves up to eighteen guests with a full dinner menu, but its setting is the main attraction. With a cocoon-like form, its simple oval shape melds organically with the tree’s trunk, lighting up at night like a lantern hanging in the forest. New Zealand architects Peter Eising and Lucy Gauntlett created this woodsy retreat — a simple structure wrapped around the trunk and structurally tied at top and bottom — so the vertical fins would mimic the trees surrounding it and allow the structure to blend in as if it were a natural growth. Work began on the structure in September, and by early January guests were enjoying their meals with a bird’s-eye view.

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