Form follows flavour: Naessi Studio’s take on the contemporary trattoria
Santo Palato’s new restaurant design breathes contemporary life into Italian tradition, striking a perfect balance between heritage and modern flair.
The Italian trattoria is more like a feeling than a place, a space that stands for warmth, abundance, and unrushed conviviality. It’s not grand like a restaurant, nor rustic like a farmhouse, but something more intimate: a living room masquerading as a public dining space. Its design clichés, from chequered tablecloths to handwritten menus, have been passed down for generations, but what does it mean to be in a contemporary trattoria today? Naessi Studio‘s attempt to refresh Santo Palato‘s interior provides an interesting and necessary perspective.
Santo Palato is a Roman contemporary trattoria, founded in 2017 by chef Sarah Cicolini. After a few years in her initial interior, she felt like the space did not reflect her cuisine anymore, and the limitations of the restaurant’s architecture were starting to constrain her creative freedom. The design studio led by Eleonora Carbone and Alessandro D’Angeli took up the challenge, starting an extensive research process across tradition and modernity, style and function.
The result is a space that revisits the typical elements of a trattoria and balances them with more contemporary counterparts. The earthy, warm palette composed of terracotta colours and wooden frames evokes comfort, but it’s sharply contrasted with flashes of bright lacquered red, adding tension and playfulness. The seating arrangements are compact but generous, designed to encourage sharing, proximity, and the kind of informal sociability that defines the trattoria experience.
Most elements are custom made, leaning into the quiet allure and humility of anonymous design. The only exception is the Flos Splügen Bräu suspension lamp by the Castiglioni brothers, which derives from its namesake pub in Milan – one of the best examples of restaurant interiors according to Naessi’s founders.
One of the key characteristics of the project is its many collaborations, mostly from within the Italian design network, which allow the interior to fluorish to its full potential. Devoto Design crafted the furniture, Cantiere Galli Design oversaw the finishes, which are also sourced from a range of Italian manufacturers, featuring La Pietra Compattata, 41zero42, Pecchioli Firenze, Alice Ceramiche, and Bongio. Downstairs, the kitchen is structured by Very Simple: Kitchen. Just as Sarah Cicolini’s cooking stays true to local values and producers, Santo Palato’s partnerships echo its ethos: rooted, intentional, and collaborative.
Naessi’s work is a great example of design that looks at history without resulting nostalgic, but rather appreciative. Rather than succumbing to the romanticised imagery of the Italian restaurant, an aesthetic that gets often overused and therefore flattened, the studio approached the typology as a living organism, focusing on understanding its needs, ritualistic fluxes, spatial codes, and material memory.
Using the trattoria’s strong legacy, as well as the recent identity of Santo Palato itself, they managed to extract its core values – conviviality, honesty, functionality – and apply them into a contemporary spatial form. The space feels anchored without being heavy, acknowledging the pull of tradition while confidently proposing new gestures.
