On the ground floor of Palazzo Gatti, an 18th-century Baroque building, Trattoria Marino unfolds across a sequence of vaulted rooms, opening onto Via Cairoli through two shopfront windows.
The client’s brief was to create a seafood trattoria with a convivial, down-to-earth atmosphere. The project engages with this identity by placing it in dialogue with the historic and monumental character of the building, while avoiding a literal recreation of the traditional Tuscan seafood trattoria.
The aim was to move away from a nostalgic reconstruction of the traditional trattoria, instead exploring the idea of a popular, everyday place reinterpreted through simple materials and a contemporary, understated and informal language. Steel, Formica, Batipin plywood, marble and white tiles define the atmosphere of the restaurant, while a brick-red tone highlights the transitions between spaces.
The dark-stained Chilean pine plywood panelling becomes a continuous element that runs throughout the rooms and, folding back on itself, transforms into seating. In the entrance room, it stands at a height of 150 cm, while in the main dining room it reaches 330 cm, incorporating three mirrors. The geometric pattern of the joints emphasises its continuity and establishes its rhythm.
References to the fishmonger’s shop emerge through the steel counter, the 10×10 cm tiles and the curtains between the openings. At the tables, marble and yellow Formica tops are paired with steel frames, creating a balance between everyday materials and more distinctive details.
Lighting completes the project: wall lamps with a distinctly 1970s character coexist with indirect lighting that gently washes over the barrel vaults with lunettes, restoring depth and prominence to the building’s historic architecture.
The result is an elegant trattoria with an informal spirit, where the down-to-earth character of the place meets the understated grandeur of a historic palazzo.
