Amalfi Restaurant: Hospitality Interior Design

The brief came with two images in mind. The room opens on three sides to the sea, and the client wanted it to feel like a terrace: light, open, connected to the view. At the same time they wanted the warmth of a grandmother's dining room — familiar, unhurried, full of material presence. Those two things are not in contradiction. A terrace has light and openness. A grandmother's dining room has depth and the feeling that someone has cared about every object in it. The design held both.

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One of the best restaurants on the Amalfi Coast was commissioning a new kitchen with a chef's table. The existing space was shabby. The brief was to bring the environment up to the level of the food.

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The floor is cotto from Fornace De Martino, one of the finest manufacturers of the material, with blue inserts that give it precision and character beyond standard terracotta. In a space associated with one of the coast's great craft traditions, the choice of material was a statement about seriousness.

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The kitchen walls are clad in fluted panels. The fridges are integrated behind them, disappearing into the wall rather than sitting in front of it. The chef's table area is separated as a distinct space within the kitchen: present but defined, so the experience of sitting there has its own identity.

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A single joinery block does the work of several elements at once: storage, spatial division, and the framing of the chef's table. One object, resolved to carry multiple functions without reading as a compromise between them.

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The space was designed to match the ambition of the restaurant. Not to compete with the food, but to be worthy of it.