"Florentini" was built in Dubrovka - a huge townhouse village located on Kaluzhskoe highway, about 6 km from the Moscow Ring Road. Stretching along the highway for almost a kilometer, the village originally had several catering establishments, which were part of the so-called "communal zone" separating the highway and the housing itself. But although the village will soon be ten years old, the local restaurants have never been very popular (with the exception of McDonald's), so they regularly changed their concept and appearance. One of such transformations happened quite recently - under the leadership of Roman Leonidov, the standard "cube" of the cafe was completely reconstructed, turning into an intriguing volume with its plasticity, clearly visible from the road.
First of all, a few words about the direction of the new restaurant. In search of a win-win concept, its owners, firstly, tried to take into account the specifics of the location (this is how the definition of "country cafe" arose), and secondly, they relied on the most popular cuisine in Russia (and the Japanese restaurant located here earlier gave way to Italian). In addition, they decided to make the new establishment multi-format - there is a cafe area, dining rooms, a space for banquets, a wine room, and a children's playroom. Given the location of the restaurant, this is a rather wise move: people rarely come here for half an hour, and they need to be offered a variety of leisure activities, but in order to accommodate such a rich functional program, the available space was not enough. That is why the building was not made "cosmetics" to improve the main facade, but it was radically rebuilt.
The architects actually doubled its area, extending the building towards residential development. It has grown upward: the building still has a flat roof, but under it there has appeared "air" - a completely glazed mezzanine floor. There is a lot of glass here: if the predecessor of "Florentini" was a dull white "box", now the volume seems completely permeable. Including due to the fact that other facade materials almost do not interact directly with glass: a narrow strip of brick turns into a developed pylon, which is strongly removed from the main volume, and the wooden sheathing of the cornice frames the building along the outer edge of the roof, significantly receding from the walls …
At the first glance at the building, attention is drawn to the emphasized neutral color scheme. Aged brick and wood tinted in a grayish shade are the materials that, according to the architects, help to perfectly link the two main “pillars” of the concept of the establishment: country and Italy.
The tree, as if burnt out in the bright sun, rules the ball in the interior of the restaurant. Architects use this material not only for cladding ceilings and walls, but also for creating truss systems and basic furnishings. Thus, they manage to completely hide the supporting metal frame and create a surprisingly solid space of the color of baked milk.
The very high ceilings that gave life to the farms also predetermined the interior layout of the restaurant. It is based on the principle of a single space, in which individual zones are designated rather conditionally. The principle of openness has even spread to the kitchen - it is made island-like and is a “culinary attraction” that can be visited by any guest of the restaurant who is not indifferent to the art of cooking Italian cuisine. The heart of the whole room is the huge bar located in the center, the "facades" of which are laid out of the same old baked bricks as the facades of the building itself.
As designer Elena Volgina explains, there was no point in “cutting” such a large room into separate offices and rooms - therefore, instead of traditional walls, screens made of the same wood were used here, the upper tier of which is used to accommodate green plants. In a number of cases, curtains made of fabric were also used as conditional partitions - quite dense in texture and exactly matching the wood cladding in color.
This decision made it possible to fill absolutely all the premises of the restaurant with daylight, which, according to Elena Volgina, became the chief designer of this interior. It is difficult to disagree with this statement: penetrating through the huge showcases that encircle the entire perimeter of the building, light gives the chosen monochrome palette a charming tenderness and authenticity. In the dark, this work is taken over by … street lamps. But they are, of course, placed not outside, but here, between the tables of the restaurant. And the point is again in the ceilings - with their height, almost any lamps placed over the heads of visitors would not look large-scale, so the architects, having introduced lush greenery and materials used on the facade into the interior, decided to add even more recognizable elements of street decoration. And they hit the spot: emitting a warm yellow light, the lanterns organically complement the Italian theme, recalling warm evenings on the boulevards and embankments.
The atmosphere of sunny Italy, which is the basis for the aesthetics of the restaurant's interior, is complemented by carefully selected accessories - comfortable furniture with soft velvet upholstery, cozy veil of curtains and a variety of vintage décor that help to forget for a while about the true geography of this place.
