Locat­ed in the heart of down­town Toron­to, the atmos­phere at the Oste­ria is at once inti­mate and socia­ble, a din­ner par­ty where all guests share the same table and the same food. Entry through the arti­sanal store­front announces to the vis­i­tor that they are in for a treat in old-world hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

Once inside how­ev­er, it is appar­ent that the rus­tic has been made mod­ern: sur­faces of reclaimed woods and stripped boards are routered with ‘machined’ pre­ci­sion, inlayed with crisp steel and punc­tu­at­ed with pow­der-coat­ed indus­tri­al com­po­nents.

The focal point of the inte­ri­or is the long, cen­tral com­mu­nal table, where 20 can indulge in com­mon amuse­ment and inter­ac­tion between strangers, as well as between host and guest is encour­aged. There is an inten­tion­al blur­ring between thresh­olds of pro­duc­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion, ser­vice and served, the indi­vid­ual and the col­lec­tive.

With a slight adjust­ment of its spring-loaded lamp, the flower-cov­ered pas­ta mak­ing butch­er block by day becomes the 8‑person fam­i­ly din­ing table by night, still carved with the secret recipe of Ciceri e Tria, the dish for which the Oste­ria was named.

The lim­it­ed menu changes dai­ly, depend­ing on the sea­son, the mar­ket and the mood of the chef. The qual­i­ty how­ev­er is always guar­an­teed, as is loy­al­ty to the ‘hand- made.’ Like its food, the archi­tec­ture of Oste­ria Ciceri e Tria exper­i­ments with reg­is­ter­ing ‘the hand’ that has fash­ioned it with an embed­ded rather than super­fi­cial lay­er of dec­o­ra­tive and cod­ed ele­ments – such as fam­i­ly snap-shots, fam­i­ly names, clips of proud man­i­festos and doily pat­terns cured into the con­crete. All ele­ments of the design have been cus­tom made, with the excep­tion of the chairs, stools and yel­low, indus­tri­al lights.