Tucked inside the mezzanine floor of an early 19th-century building sits Contraste, a Michelin-starred restaurant that offers theatrical design and innovative gastronomy. Opened in 2015, the restaurant has recently unveiled a new design identity, paying homage to the history of its architectural shell in a playful and sensory collision of old and new.

Creative design studio Debonademeo were the masterminds behind the spatial reimagining, deploying a versatile and engaging layout that split the restaurant’s largest space into four distinct zones. With a focus on the experiential, Debonademeo Studio used colour and draping to give each zone a unique identity, while furniture from another Italian icon – Pedrali – adds both comfort and sophistication for an elevated dining experience. Contrasted against each other, motifs of colour, shape, and tone clash in a delightfully curious way, giving Contraste an interior personality that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Wes Anderson film.

The theatre of food

Guests arrive into a lobby wrapped in champagne-colored foil, where a series of doorways and openings reveal slivers of rooms each swathed in a different colour. As they move through the restaurant, these rooms unfold from each other, unveiling a rainbow of jewel tone segments that are opened or blocked through a system of draped curtains.

More than just a visual aid, the curtains also serve an acoustics purpose, absorbing kitchen noise and the bustle of the streets outside to give guests a quiet and intimate dining experience. Light patterning adds to this careful acoustic work, carving out private spaces for individual tables with vignettes of daylight for lunch service and soft glowing corners for dinner.

All of these interventions have been considered within the context of the building’s architectural shell, selected in consultation with technical and heritage experts to expertly reveal the soul of the space. Specialised craftsmen recovered and preserved 19th century stuccos, frescoes and decorative elements, while the addition of new surfaces and finishings were chosen for how they would compliment and interplay with these original features. Colour and fitout, while modern and contemporary, create a dialogue between past and present, artfully juxtaposing against the ornate to give Contraste a distinct character.

Italian design on show

The contrast between old and new deepens with the furniture selected for the restaurant, with Pedrali’s Ester armchairs and the round Inox tables adding to the space’s visual narrative. The rounded shapes of both chair and table creates a second contrast of the supple and the structured, with angled doorways and trimmings setting off the collection of sinuous forms that make up the fitout.

Designed by Patrick Jouin, Ester represents the perfect synthesis of elegance, ergonomics, and functionality. In this space, the natural beige tone of the leather upholstery offers a respite from the colour-drenched walls, while the die-cast aluminium legs bring a sleek sophistication to the overall structure. The padded shell in polyurethane foam with elastic belts also ensures absolute comfort to allow the food and flavours to shine.

The Inox table, while serving an essential practical purpose, is also integral to the restaurant’s overall design. It’s circular base and tabletop create a motif that repeats throughout the entire restaurant, contrasting playfully with the sharp angles of the zoned doorways and trimmings. The base and column in antique brass finish also add to the feeling of age and history. Highlighted in the renovation, while the Inox bar table with Fenix finish in fluorescent orange adds a playfulness to the reserved Klein blue Relax room.

On a deeper level, Pedrali’s position as an icon of Italian design reinforces both the restaurant’s esteemed position on the Milanese design scene, and the history and sophistication of the building itself. Much like the intent behind Contraste’s new design, Pedrali’s legacy is one that combines tradition, innovation, and excellence, preserving the iconic vernacular of Italian design, but constantly evolving and updating to sit at the precipice of contemporary global standards.

An immersive restaurant experience

Reentering into the Milanese culinary scene with a new design, Constraste brings a new flavour to the city’s gastronomic offering. Drawing on the unique collision of flavours that first made the restaurant famous, its new visual identity adds an immersiveness that only aids the magic of the menu. The flavors of the dishes find their counterpart in the perceptual alternation of the interiors, where one moves from cold colors to warm colors, from supple lines to sharp features,  from historical elements to contemporary furniture pieces – an encapsulation not just of a fusion cuisine, but of one of the world’s true global cities.