In Via Valtellina in Milan, a new pearl of Milan ‘to eat’ has opened: the Basho Eclectic House. The restaurant chain, ‘Basho’ in fact, founded a few years ago by a very young and enterprising Calabrian, Michele Giglio, offers ‘sushi fusion’ restaurants that combine Italian, Japanese and Brazilian cuisines.
The design of the Milanese Basho was entrusted to Nick Maltese and Fede Pagetti of Nick Maltese Studio, by now two acknowledged aces in inventing exclusive and unrepeatable interior design for hospitality spaces, thanks to their proven ability to bring together, enhancing them, the most disparate stylistic and material sources.
In the work of the two creatives one can read a multiplicity of impulses, inspirations, references, contaminations, all aimed at defining differences and uniqueness.
The shop windows, which frame the interior of the restaurant, appear like tableaux vivants in which the actions of the diners become theatrical acts, integrating perfectly in the highly scenographic and imaginative settings conceived by Maltese and Pagetti.
The entrance, complete with a reception counter and a giant gorilla, is an enigmatic total Klein blue bubble, with luminescent optical decorations and magical lighting. In this way, the Living Room is squared off, to which a bar and the SushiMen’s station connect: here the echo of Ettore Sottsass’s Memphis and Alessandro Mendin’s Alchimia is strong. A relaxed set with sofas, armchairs and small tables, lulled by ambient music.
In sequence we now move on to the Dining Room, characterised by an understated but not resigned elegance. Blue, ochre, an earthy, rusty red, the veiny Levanto red of the marble-effect stoneware connote a reassuring palette with personality. On the visual side, there are a couple of striking inventions by the two designers: the architectural decoration staged by the wallpapers designed for London Art and a wall composed of a porthole sequence of washing machines on which the words “wash your dirty habits” stand out ironically. This is the amused entrance to the so-called Laundry Room, which is a sort of club, an intimate and cosy privé, with night colours and dense, suffused lighting, suitable for staging small, more or less transgressive shows.
The Dining Room also leads to the Play Room. In this transition, harmony in contrast is at its most expressive. Screaming colours, cartoon stills and comic book images pantographed on backlit sheets, blue polka dot floors, an aura that communicates joie de vivre and a desire for companionship, sharing, play.
The whole is truly evocative, a breath of theatricality that traverses epochs and sentiments of yesterday and today, that teases the memory, but with a contemporary approach, that promotes a disenchanted reflection on our being in a topicality – in the vision of Maltese and Panetti – devoid of preclusions and prejudices.
For more information visit www.nickmaltesestudio.com.
CREDITS
Project: Basho Eclectic House
Studio: Nick Maltese Studio
Location: Milan, Italy
Year: 2023
