Location: Cancun, Quintana Roo

Interior Designer: Filipao Nunes Arquitectos

Photographer: Aldo Gracia

Located next to the Nichupte lagoon, Cancun, Nicoletta is a restaurant that enhances Italian cuisine in a contemporary way, respecting seasoning, tradition, textures and colours. Nicoletta is the place where gastronomy merges with interior design to transport you to the Amalfi coast.

The restaurant is divided into two levels; the ground floor, located at street level which welcomes guests into the lobby and has decoration that awakens imagination and curiosity about what happens on the top floor, 20 metres above the level of the lagoon. The interior design, inspired by the Mediterranean coast, contemplates a main room for 210 guests, which resembles a rustic chic style mansion, where the landscape and height takes inspiration from the buildings embedded into the cliffs of the coast.

The details of Tuscan architecture are fused through the use of stones, wooden beams, arches, frescoes, tiles and characteristic colours. The walls are covered in white tile, with a hand-painted pattern in a blue tone, resembling the blue of the Mediterranean Sea, the same one that served as inspiration for so many artists when visiting Capri. The island, located in the Tyrrhenian Sea, is where Roman sculptures can also be discovered, such as those that frame the main bar and are highlighted by the lighting and the contrast with the floral vegetation. These features highlight each of the architectural details and make you feel in that whitewashed landscape covered with bougainvillea and flowers.

Key to the design is the relationship between the movement of the patterns found on the floor, walls, with the arches, in contrast to the calm of the lagoon. The design works so well as it harmonizes an architectural style, tropicalizes a region and the beautiful views give guests a different proposal to what can be seen in the surrounding area. Nicoletta Cancun respects the overall view whilst integrating itself with the environment by using natural materials from the region.