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Architects: Francesco Faccin
- Year: 2013
- Photographs: Filippo Romano
Text description provided by the architects. The place is intimate and welcoming, only 28 seats. It is located in a quiet and private street in the heart of the Navigli’s area, and it has taken the place of the historical Karaoke CantaMilano. The architectural project aimed to bring the room to its original state with the incorporation of new furniture elements produced internally with recycled materials. The kitchen is the soul of the project and reveals the preparation of the food plates to the clients thanks to a slit window that can be quickly glanced while entering the domain.The construction itself was carried on by the convicts of the Penitentiary Institute of Bollate (Istituto Penitenziario di Bollate), that were able to benefit from the 21st Article taking a place within the construction site. Subsequently to this important experience, the restaurant will continue to make efforts to reintegrate professionally these underprivileged categories.
The chef Caterina Malerba was born in Calabria, precisely in Pizzo Calabro, a gorgeous town along the Tyrrhenian sea where, together with her husband opens her first restaurant. Since 1995 to nowadays they have known how to deliver high quality and refined taste recipes that come from the traditional roots. The remarkable passion for food, the curiosity towards new techniques and the selection of high quality products have allowed the chef in just a few years to maintain a proper identity within a very difficult field.
Our kitchen is directed towards ethic values, it is accurate about the food quality and it is respectful with the environment and with the equity of the production processes. BOLLATE LAB: Liveinslums NGO Onlus, partner of the project, has started within the prison a construction and carpentry laboratory to produce the furniture for the restaurant. The lab is attended by the detained that are unable to go out and these were identified by the prison educators and later on followed by the association members during the training period and all along the work. Inside the lab tables, doors, cabins and cupboards were built; all designed by Francesco Faccin . The restaurant has in its program also to become a showcase window of these products and to create a selling network in straight contact with the Bollate prison. On the other hand, the laboratory will continue to develop projects related to the food but not only, with a packed program of external hosts that make part of Milan’s design world, it will aim to create and interpret a new line of furniture along with the convicts.
