What’s the perfect pairing for fried pizza? An equally inviting place to eat it in. Michelin-starred, Campania-born chef Antonino Cannavacciuolo’s Il banco di Cannavacciuolo restaurant recently opened its doors inside The Style Outlets, a retail mecca in the Piedmont city of Vicolungo, with a design that elevates Neopolitan cuisine.
The new gastropub reimagines Italian dessert classics like sfogliatelle and brioche con gelato as well as Neapolitan street food, including the city’s legendary cuoppo fried pizza, as gourmet delicacies. The design team of Turin-based firm lamatilde translated this traditional-meets-modern ethos into a space exuding a balanced blend of contemporary design and relatable charm.
The 144-square-metre interior is personable, warm and inviting. It’s divided into two zones – one for food prep and the other for eating and shopping – anchored by a central counter. But the two side walls are even more interesting; suspended above each is an installation of wood-lined mirrored panels integrated with light fixtures that makes an abstract reference to the marquees and awnings of farmers markets. “Il banco di Cannavacciuolo tips a hat to the simplicity of the markets: it is quintessentially Antonino, the ideal place to discover the street food of the star chef,” the designers say.
Throughout, the material choices themselves act as compelling accents, from the playful geometric zigzag patterns of the white and powder-blue flooring to the counters crafted from cement embedded with resin and glass aggregate. Not only a restaurant, Il banco di Cannavacciuolo also doubles as a retail space with brilliantly branded products. The wood wall units, adorned in decorative wallpaper whose black-speckled pattern was created with the use of forks, whisks and knives as brushes, were built with the express intention of showcasing cookbooks, aprons and accoutrements.
A meeting ground of new culinary approaches with notes from Italy’s past, this restaurant is appetizing in more ways than one.
Renowned Campania-born chef Antonino Cannavacciuolo teams up with Turin design firm lamatilde to create a gem of a resto-retail spot in Vicolungo.