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Underground atmosphere
The famed Carlo & Camilla in Duomo café and restaurant is an urban chic-inspired space. Run by celebrity chef Carlo Cracco, the venue covers two floors of iridescent surfaces, shifting light, and the dark hues of Marazzi cladding, transporting diners along a sensory and culinary journey. A bar at the entrance, looking out onto Via Victor Hugo, is the starting point, before clients head down a large black staircase into a basement level two floors below - a true underground experience. For architect Gio Tirotto, one of the key challenges was to link this bar and café area, looking out onto one of fashionable Milan’s busy streets, with the elegant dining area below. His use of balanced choices achieves this, bringing formal unity to the entire venue, but keeping each area distinct. On the ground floor, sofas with a black washed jeans look fit seamlessly with the raw aluminum chairs, a steel counter with a pewter finish and an imposing Venini chandelier. Below, in the restaurant, the dominant feature is a long table partially surrounded by a built-in bench in black oak and works by the artist Eron.
The steel surfaces, walls, floor and ceiling reflect and refract light and shadow, as the paneling and flooring become the skin and frame for the entire restaurant, forging a visual connection between the ground and basement floors. The paneling on the walls is characterized by horizontal lines and streaks, with touches of color added in carefully chosen points, mirroring the details and furnishings in the restaurant.
The dark, iridescent floor was created with extra-large porcelain stoneware tiles from Marazzi’s Grande Metal Look line (6 mm), in the Iron Dark shade. The tiles come in standard 120x120, 120x240, 160x320 and 162x324 mm sizes, but for this project, at the architect’s request, they were produced in a special 160x160 mm format to exalt the sense of continuity.
