Davide Groppi ‘lights up’ the dishes of the Osteria Francescana – the world’s third-best restaurant.
In the last months, the Italian designer Davide Groppi has carried out various lighting projects for restaurants. Amongst them is the Osteria Francescana in Modena (Italy) which was just ranked the third best restaurant in the world by the British magazine ‘Restaurant.’ This experience led him to create a series of designs that, in his own words, will ‘light up a plate’. In fact he has named the entire project ‘La luce nel piatto’ and he explains the creative process in the following video:
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For Davide Groppi, who has his own eponymous lighting company, a restaurant client should be able to enjoy multiple sensorial experiences. He likes to think that one of the most seductive things for a guest might be to feel ‘alone’ in the dining room. Given this, and inspired by the light created by artist Caravaggio, the majority of his restaurant projects leave much of the dining room in darkness and focus one light source on the table, or even directly on the dishes themselves in some cases.
Osteria Francescana Dining Room, Sampei floor lamp designed by Enzo Calabrese and Davide Groppi.
Detail of the lighting at Osteria Francescana – Nulla designed by Davide Groppi.
In particular, Groppi finds the painting ‘Cena in Emmaus’ by Caravaggio particularly inspiring. This work led him to develop the idea of direct lighting onto the plate. Therefore, the project for the restaurant La Calandre in Padova (which is in the 27th ‘Best Restaurants in the World’ position), includes the pieces Ovo and Ovonelpiatto which were designed by Massimiliano and Raffaele Alajmo.
A hanging lamp in his catalogue that also ‘lights up a plate’ is the tubular-shaped Miss, that was created by Omar Carraglia and is used in the interior design of the Antica Osteria del Teatro in Piacenza. The first image of this post, the Saba lamp, was also designed by Carraglia.
During the Euroluce lighting fair that was held last April together with the Milan Furniture Fair, Davide Groppi launched a curious piece that is the fruit of all thess projects – the Tetatet mobile lamp. It is a wireless design that can be positioned at any point on the table thanks to a system of magnets. It is a revisited and avantgarde version of the candle that functions with LED technology.
Other recent restaurant projects conceived by Davide Groppi include the Caffè Grande in Rivergaro, the Caffè Quadri in Venezia and Il Barino in Piacenza, as seen below.
