Røst is a brand new restaurant that brings to Milan, in the heart of Porta Venezia neighborhood, the concept of circular, simple and authentic cuisine, with the rediscovery of traditional Italian dishes: poor meat cuts, forgotten foods and peculiar vegetables.
The architecture studio Vudafieri-Saverino Partners has designed the interiors of the restaurant, developed over 65 square metres and conceived as a cozy place, between tradition and modernity.
The space consists of two rooms: the main one, which gravitates around the bar counter, and a smaller one, overlooking the open kitchen.
At the entrance, a wall displays the restaurant’s major players: it is the Wall of Fame, 16 ceramic plates, each representing a producer, whose space arrangement draws the ø of Røst.
The architects have reflected brand DNA and values into space, colour and surface solutions: the environment is simple, without frills or artifice; the use of material is reduced to just a few basic types (lime, brass, oak) as if they were the ingredients of a recipe on the menu.
The tones are warm, dominated by “Marsala” red, a colour that harks back to the fundamental relationship with wine and land; with their lime frescoes, the walls are characterized by two shades, the darker of which creates a sort of irregular boiserie; the same colours are used in the ceramic cladding of the kitchen and in the adjacent room.
The décor comes in Milanese style: noble materials like marble, brass, velvet and leather unostentatiously characterise the setting, in contrast with the lime walls and the floor; the bar counter stands out for its long solid oak top and the vertical covering, made up of natural brass profiles of different section, while a large suspended brass and glass bottle rack floats above the bar.
The restaurant, overlooking the street with two windows, is on the ground floor of a building in old Milan, in a location that was for years an auto parts shop: the continuity with the past and the relationship with memories can be seen in the decision to preserve the original seminato in porphyry floor and in the particular chandelier in the smaller room, designed by Tiziano Vudafieri, assembling headlamps of cars of different ages, a tribute to the history of the car parts shop that previously occupied the space.
The restaurant tells its story also through the original graphics, designed by the creative agency 150UP and, finally, Terrazzo, a work by the artist Roberto Coda Zabetta reproduced in a play of mirrors and infinite reflections, is to be found behind the bar counter, in the blind wall hidden from public view: a “curtain of colours” that represents an architectural adaptation and cites other works by the artist, bringing with it the signs of other places and meanings.
Photography is by Santi Caleca.
