A space shaped by the deconstruction and fluid reinterpretation of locality, materiality, and traditional symbols — realized in collaboration with artists and creators across disciplines.


髙 GAO Taipei carries forward thirty years of culinary memory from my father's generation, opening officially in December 2025.

We inherit the cheesecake legacy of Gāoshì in Taipei — but within a new generational context, we want to ask a different question: Can pastry become a cultural entry point? A creative platform for dialogue, deconstruction, and reinterpretation?

髙 GAO Taipei was born from a reimagining of a family culinary legacy. My father spent decades in the pastry industry; from that foundation, we began asking whether a deeper connection between dessert and culture was possible.

Starting from familial craft, we traced our way into the threads of Taiwanese cultural history. The hybrid aesthetics of 1970s and '80s Taiwan — the convergence of Japanese colonial craftsmanship, commercial design from the American aid era, folk traditions, and Western influences — became a vital source of inspiration. From this, we seek to propose a new contemporary sensibility and vocabulary: one where pastry is no longer merely a product for sale, but an entry point into cultural narrative.

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Extending Memory and Cultural Depth Through Taste

We develop our products under a single guiding principle: restrained, yet deeply considered.

Our opening collection features two signature cheesecakes: Sour — bright and clean, with a gentle acidity, like spring rain drifting through Taipei; and Mellow — rich and unhurried, like a quiet moment in an afternoon alley. Alongside these, we introduce the Breton collection "Seasonal Garden / Mountain Harvest," presenting six flavors that trace the shifting rhythms of the four seasons.

If pastry is to serve as a cultural medium, then clarity must follow. We narrow our offering deliberately, so that each piece can fully embody the spirit behind it — refined in ingredient, precise in flavor. Future releases will evolve with the seasons and collaborative projects, but we remain committed to a quality that carries both elegance and depth, where every bite becomes an extension of memory.

A Spatial Language Rooted in Locality and Materiality

In collaboration with Benshì Space Production, the island facade is finished in a faux-stone technique that carries the tactile sensibility of Taiwan's local craft traditions, while expansive light membranes define the atmospheric register of the space. Metalwork, chamfered edges, and structural lines extend a mixed-material vocabulary — holding tension between the raw and the refined, and composing a visual rhythm that reads as open and spare, yet densely layered.

Within this material language, cultural symbols are brought forward with deliberate friction. The spatial installation by LANDHILLS botanical artist Liao Hao-Che draws on "red incense legs" and red cords — symbols rooted deep in Taiwanese folk belief — encasing them within an alien, gel-like medium. Tradition and contemporaneity are made to confront one another, producing a charged visual dialogue. The installation will be on view throughout the opening period, and will be overwritten and transformed alongside future projects — keeping the space in a state of continuous, living flux.
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For our brand identity, we collaborated with HOUTH to deconstruct and reassemble the character 「髙」 as a visual symbol. It operates as a vessel of layered meaning — 髙 as the brand name, 糕 as the core product, and the Taiwanese notion of 髙禮數 (gāo-lé-sòo) — a generosity of spirit and hospitality we hope every visitor carries with them. Through a flexible structural system, we sought a balance between the classic and the contemporary, shaping a mark that is both approachable and expansively adaptable.

Fork the Future — Generating the Cultural Version of This Moment
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Our aesthetic approach is rooted in a cultural practice of deconstruction and recombination — placing seemingly disparate elements side by side: Taiwanese local culture, folk symbols, international visual languages, traditional techniques, and contemporary materials, gathered within a single narrative space to collide, converge, and reform.

We sincerely invite every visitor to take part in this cultural experiment.
‍Fork the Future — this is where it begins.