The main floor “La Men­sa” is where patrons can stay to eat or pick up hot or cold food to go Ital­ian cafe­te­ria-style. A mon­u­men­tal, wood vault becomes the uni­fy­ing ele­ment. It evokes a basil­i­ca vault made of quar­ter-sawn white oak like an unfin­ished bas­ket that spans and col­lects peo­ple from the entrance and cof­fee bar, through the cafe­te­ria style seat­ing, and the altar-like ‘tavola cal­da’.

Side aisles act as con­fes­sion­als for those seek­ing abso­lu­tion through pas­tries or piz­za, and its mosa­ic floor evokes the flour and saw­dust of local sub­ur­ban Ital­ian bak­eries. Final­ly, the bak­ery and ovens are cap­tured at the end of the space by a deep mahogany arch – an apse devot­ed to the warmth and aro­ma of fresh bread on Sun­days.

We find joy in the unex­pect­ed details and mate­ri­als that occu­py the space between new, pris­tine instal­la­tions, and the ‘non-fini­to’ of the exposed, 19th C. host build­ing.

GPA sig­na­ture fora­to clay tiles, still wait­ing for a lay­er of fin­ish plas­ter, are alter­nate­ly rotat­ed at the cor­ner to cre­ate an almost dec­o­ra­tive edge and lin­ing to the raw steel stair. Steel ‘rib­bons’, arti­facts from a for­mer use, are stitched togeth­er with fresh cut leather strap­ping, lead­ing the pub­lic to the fin­er upper lev­el din­ing.

“Oste­ria Da Gep­peto”, on the sec­ond floor, is devot­ed to Cosi­mo Mammoliti’s father, Vince. In cre­at­ing its menu, exec­u­tive chef Gio­van­na Alonzi want­ed the pres­ence of bread and moth­er yeast to be felt as a reminder that “Gep­pet­to” is Sud Forno’s restau­rant. The menu rein­ter­prets clas­sic Ital­ian dish­es and tra­di­tion­al ingre­di­ents against a back­drop of warm wood and light.