A restaurant with a cosmopolitan flavour

The Sausalito restaurant and pizzeria in Sassuolo (province of Modena, Italy) welcomes guests with industrial chic atmospheres and a distinctive character. The new look stems from a restyling project carried out by the practice SineStudio, who were commissioned by the owners to modernise the traditional layout of this restaurant famous for its combination of traditional Modenese cuisine and Neapolitan pizza. «The clients wanted a more contemporary style that would help them expand their customer base,» explained Federico Agostini, one of the architects from the Sassuolo-based practice. «We considered the possibility of giving the Sausalito a kind of second life that would extend its appeal beyond a conventional venue for lunch or evening pizza, adding the after-dinner service of a pub-restaurant or American bar that would attract a younger clientele, perhaps with background music,» he continued. The large 200 square metre open space was redesigned, including the service areas and the utilities, with special emphasis on optimising the acoustics of that single volume. Rather than a purely aesthetic exercise aimed at creating a decidedly non-local space, the new restaurant follows criteria of functionality for the purpose of increasing customer flows. As a marketing operation, it «surpassed all expectations», Agostini explains. Starting out from the nickname Sau, which was used as a logo on the windows and updates the old «Sausalito» with a more contemporary image, everything was conceived during the more than year-long design phase. By contrast, the work itself took just 12 days to complete. Sinestudio adopts a client-oriented approach and sees every project as a kind of bespoke suit, designed with Italian-made tailored solutions. The eatery’s ‘new suit’ is designed according to a metropolitan taste based on a choice of materials such as wood, glass and steel along with furnishings and finishings that recreate the various functional areas and punctuate the rhythms of the different spaces. However, the volume remains open without partitions that would lessen the sense of depth, creating the feeling of being in a loft. To the right of the entrance, the visually-striking service area is accentuated by the curved profile of the false ceiling that accommodates the utilities. The space is dominated by a walnut bar counter designed by SineStudio, behind which there are a series of wall-mounted cabinets ending at an oblique wall with a facing brick effect. This effect — reprised on the side wall — was achieved using Tribeca series porcelain tiles from Ceramica Rondine’s Brick Generation collection, which emulates the forms and material texture of brick in a 6×25 cm size and thickness of 10 mm. This not only gives an industrial accent to the space but also enhances the end walls which would otherwise lack personality. The grey colour of the ‘bricks’ blends in with the warm and cold tones of the scene and amalgamates with the furnishings designed by the practice with their strong material focus. These include the high tables with steel legs and wood top and the square buffet unit which combines a raw metal top with a walnut base. Likewise, the waxed lead colour 60×60 cm Amarcord collection square porcelain floor tiles from Ceramica Rondine were chosen for their functionality and ease of maintenance. «The unique honed finish gives the surface a timeworn look, making it more interesting and less monotonous,» commented the architect. Another element that defines the character of the restaurant is the lighting system, which consists of numerous lighting points both for aesthetic reasons and to create a variety of scenarios and sequences suited to the different functions of the Sausalito.