Get into Circolino del pane by Davide Longoni

Culinary culture is a must have for the Italian landscape, it’s a piece of everyday life shared by all Italians no matter where you are based along the Mediterranean peninsula. It consists of a mix of both tradition and new contamination, but it always starts from high quality local ingredients. 

Among the wide amount of outstanding experts and professionals involved in the Italian food sector, there’s Davide Longoni, an interesting figured considered to be one of the fathers of modern bread-making. During his career, he has constantly inspired and trained many other bakers, who in recent years have opened artisan workshops to produce bread and to build culture around the world of bread. His innovative idea is raising bread to the same level and dignity that have long been primary characteristics of the world of wine, transforming it into an agricultural product, linked to the land, the territory and the agricultural supply.

Longoni is sharing his culinary knowledge, as well as his products in Milan where he manage a laboratory and a shop. But in 2022 he came to the need of having a brand new space in order to meet people, sharing and researching bread culture and its weaving and hybridization with design culture. This is how a new space, called Circolino del pane (The Tiny Circle of Bread), has been created.

Astrid Luglio, a Milan-based designer born in Naples with a strong interest in product and furniture designer for the culinary culture, took care of the design of Circolino del pane, located within one of the factories of the former industrial neighbourhood of via Tertulliano. The Circolino has been designed to be a laboratory for experimentation, a living room for conversations, a table for discussions recognizing artisanal culture as part of intellectual culture.

The kitchen is Circolino’s main architectural and conceptual feature. A spacious kitchen which has been custom-made for the project by Very Simple: Kitchen and that develops as a central island which will also function as a table. Alongside it, there is a wall-mounted block, together with a kitchen chest on wheels, conceived especially for the kneading leavening and conservation of the flours. The kitchen project is completed by a matched couple of stainless steel shelves on top of the modular wall configuration.

While the kitchen structure features a creamy white colour, the countertop is made of tiles of cotto variegato lombardo, a traditional technique reinterpreted by Astrid Luglio and produced by Riva furnace, which mixes clay of different colours, such as white, light blue and the red one collected from river Lambro’s gravel, with a technique which reminds of the gestures of bread making. 

The space is suitable to host small groups, dinners, tastings, ceramic and cooking classes, as well as conversations where everyone can look into each other’s eye. It is a space where one can feel at home, where to develop projects, create relationships and explore the sensoriality of bread and food.

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