Pollini wins Finest Restaurant at Wallpaper Design Awards 2024

Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s new London restaurant, Pollini at Ladbroke Corridor, brings collectively the talents of two Italian creatives – chef Emanuele Pollini and architect Vincenzo De Cotiis – below the vaulted ceiling of London’s new vacation spot for artwork, design, music and meals.

The duo have joined forces earlier than, with the gallery’s co-founders Loïc Le Gaillard and Julien Lombrail first sampling Pollini’s handiwork at a dinner hosted by De Cotiis in Milan. ‘We felt it was uncommon to search out somebody who might put a lot emotion right into a plate of pasta,’ says Le Gaillard. ‘And as with all of our artists, we have been on the lookout for a chef who might inform a narrative.’

Pollini at Ladbroke Corridor

Pollini’s playground is the magnificent arched house that was as soon as the doorway to the previous Sunbeam Talbot Motor Firm. Its 1903, Grade II-listed structure has been preserved and accentuated by De Cotiis, who has drawn on the monochrome color palette of the unique particulars, comparable to a marble balustrade, and added reflective surfaces. ‘The restaurant does not simply occupy the house; it converses with it,’ he insists.

Seated at tables topped with hand-patinated, reclaimed fibreglass – additionally designed by the architect – friends will probably be taken on a journey by Pollini’s childhood in Italy. Within the chef’s homage to his mom’s lasagna, for instance, this Italian traditional is reborn as ravioli, served with dried ragu ‘chips’ that evoke the splendid crust of the unique.

The gallerists labored with Pollini – named Gambero Rosso’s chef of the yr in 2020 – simply as they might with any of their artists and designers, difficult his imaginative and prescient, curating the dishes that they felt have been most ‘related’ and suggesting tweaks to flavours and presentation. ‘The philosophy behind Ladbroke Corridor is all about artistic dialogue,’ says Le Gaillard.

In the meantime, De Cotiis’ problem was to make the constructing’s imposing Beaux-Arts structure really feel intimate. His resolution was to cocoon a part of the central bar space with a sculptural fibreglass wall, lined with hand-treated granite on the within, and cabinets created from antiqued glass.

The black tones of the bar, seating and tables give technique to white on the partitions, drawing the main focus to the architectural detailing and an unlimited chandelier by Nacho Carbonell that plunges from the ceiling – an natural spectacle during which glowing steel meshes unfurl from gnarled branches.

Antiqued and hand-patinated surfaces are a De Cotiis hallmark that will probably be writ giant in his upcoming exhibition, ‘Archaeology of Consciousness’, opening at Ladbroke Corridor throughout Frieze Week (10 October 2023 – 28 January 2024). A sequence of distorted arch sculptures will probably be introduced in a destroy setting, their uncommon stone, reclaimed fibreglass and Murano glass marked by a mixture of pure erosion and hand-patination. His objective for these ambiguous objects, he says, is to ‘reframe our understanding of ruins, not as stays of the previous, however as fragments of a future but to be constructed’.

Guests to the present will be capable of discover this ruined panorama earlier than interacting with De Cotiis’ work extra immediately in Pollini at Ladbroke. This will get to the center of the gallerists’ objectives for Ladbroke Corridor. ‘It’s not sufficient to simply present stunning artwork anymore – we need to provide an expertise,’ Le Gaillard explains, including that meals is a crucial a part of the ‘cultural ecosystem’ that they’re incubating in west London.

At Ladbroke Corridor, artwork, design and linguine ai ricci additionally include a side-dish of jazz on Friday evenings, and from subsequent week, guests may even be capable of pop down for an aperitif at ‘Lamyland’, a bar, lounge and recording studio conceived by French designer-artist Michèle Lamy. In spring 2024, diners may even be capable of spill out onto the brand new backyard by London-based designer Luciano Giubbilei.

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