Architect Francesco Gasperini's renovation of Locanda Remare in Cesenatico — a fish restaurant and hotel overlooking Leonardo's canal harbour since 1946, where a fully bespoke palette of mustard, mud, black pepper, and cinnamon clay finishes gives each room its own distinct character within a cohesive material vision.
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about this project
Overlooking the picturesque setting of Cesenatico’s Leonardesque Canal Harbour since 1946, Locanda Remare is a fish restaurant with guest rooms on the upper floor, which are rented out as room & breakfast. The restoration—born from the intuition of owner and interior designer Giacomo Domeniconi and refined by architect Francesco Gasperini—embraces the concept of “informal luxury.” The project focuses on the expressive power of matter: the use of exceptional raw materials restores a tactile memory and a profound experiential identity to the space. Within this quest for authenticity lies the choice of raw earth: a sustainable architectural “ingredient” capable of ennobling the environment with essential refinement.
Every detail is entirely tailor-made, from the handles to the doors, down to the chromatic selection of the vertical surfaces. In the restaurant, MB Seta clay paint coats the walls in a warm, deep custom shade. On the upper floor, matter becomes a narrative: MB Terra Natural Structured medium-grained plaster creates scenographic bas-relief walls behind the bed headboards. Four rooms, four distinct colors from which the rooms take their names: Senape (Mustard) and Cannella (Cinnamon) are the two double rooms overlooking the Canal Harbour; the Fango (Mud) tone becomes the Origano room to maintain the association with the kitchen; Pepe Nero (Black Pepper), instead, is transformed into Liquirizia (Liquorice). A material synesthesia that turns the walls into a true extension of taste.
Guests embark on a perceptual journey that begins with the metal “Welcome to Cesenatico” sign on the restaurant’s main wall and leads to the discovery of an original brick wall, left bare to show the marks of salt and time. Between the flavor of the sea and the grain of the surfaces, architecture becomes a complete sensory experience, where simplicity is the ultimate and most sophisticated form of hospitality. A design reimagined through a traditional lens—not as a return to the past, but as memory expressed, first and foremost, through technique. In this locanda, architecture renounces the ego of invention to become a synthesis of collective knowledge: by turning to the wisdom of expert craftsmen, the design does not seek to invent, but rather allows the material to tell an authentic story.
Photography: Angelo Ciccolo
In real spaces
