The intervention on the Manna set itself the ambitious goal of rebalancing the design of the restaurant-whose restyling I had already taken care of almost 10 years ago-with the gastronomic awareness matured and proposed to date by chef Matteo Fronduti.
Aggregating the adjoining commercial space, in place of the old doctor's office is the bar, which can be enjoyed independently of the restaurant, but is both its entrance and also the point of access to the basement part where the restaurant's ancillary rooms are located.
Although the Manna has expanded -in terms of surface area-, the location of the new kitchen almost three times larger than before and the limitations due to the nature of the building -a building from the early 1900s with load-bearing masonry to relate to- have marked the choices toward a rational planimetric solution of the paths, of the ancillary spaces, to offer as much ease as possible to the administration rooms -which have not increased the number of seats- with a better separation between the tables.
From the bar, there is direct access to the first room through an area, however, of disengagement in which the access of the bathrooms and the refrigerated wine cellar have been placed, which, in view towards the room, concludes the perspective view of the latter.
From here, two openings in the load-bearing masonry lead -on the left- to the second administration room, the one with the windows on the street, -on the right-, the large kitchen that now has direct access from the outside as well.
The outcome of the work is the result of a virtuous synergy between architect and client on every aspect of the design first and the changes on site later; from the architectural point of view, what was already expressed in nuce in the previous restyling of the restaurant was refined: rigorous environments, combinations of few but studied materials, essential but characterizing color coordination.
Precisely the use of the dominant color such as anthracite black -a bold choice even for a restaurant- employed on the walls and on the floor and wall ceramics, (even in the kitchen), is confronted with the strategic element of the ceiling.
It is not only the upper infill of a space but contributes to the definition of the rooms themselves. In this case, the role of the false ceiling -in wood strips- was multiple: it contains and conceals the hygrothermal comfort apparatuses, the lighting fixtures, it contributes in materials and shapes to the acoustic absorption of the rooms and is in itself an architectural element; in fact, for each each each room the ceiling has a different geometry.
That of the bar room was influenced in the search for a reference to the “Milaneseness” of Manna: the two pitches of the ceiling and the five arches at varying heights of the bottigliera are a tribute precisely to the facade of the Sant'Ambrogio.
As well as the bottigliera, all the furnishings-except the chairs-were designed and made specifically for the restaurant: the counter, the bar sofa, the service furniture, the wine cellar, and the different types of tables-those fixed in concrete and those mobile in wood and stone.
Ultimately, in the synthesis of the architectural choices (layout, lighting, furniture, colors, etc.), a sequence of spaces of suspended, almost dreamlike atmosphere is formalized, in which the gastronomic experience is enjoyed in a theatrical dimension; as if, in a certain sense, the role of the diner is reduced to that of a spectator and is subordinated to the dish, the real protagonist of the play.
