To stop by Marigold in Rome, helmed by couple Domenico Cortese (a chef from Calabria) and Sofie Wochner (a baker from Copenhagen), plus an international team of baristas, servers, and cooks (“between the kitchen and the dining room,” they say, “we speak seven different languages”).
Photography via @marigold_roma, except where noted.
The result is a restaurant and micro bakery with Roman-meets-Nordic appeal, a shop filled with house-designed ceramics, and, sometimes, flowers foraged from the Aurelian walls on the coffee bar.
The shop has an unassuming exterior on Via Giovanni da Empoli.
Photograph by Ryan Neveen, courtesy of Marigold.
A bundle of found flowers is not an uncommon sight.
Sofie designed the interior herself with help from another Danish-Italian couple: Samina Langholz and Andrea Brugi, based in Tuscany.
Marigold, named for “the humble flower that can often be seen blooming in Villa Pamphili, where Sofie and Domenico enjoy foraging for wild ingredients,” serves Sofie’s pastries by morning and Domenico’s ever-changing dishes morning, noon, and night, alongside natural wines.
An excavated wall adds texture behind the bar, and candles are lit even at breakfast—a Scandi touch.
Sofie found many of the furnishings from flea markets or antique stores; some of the mix-and-match dining chairs, in fact, are from her childhood home in Denmark.
Among the thoughtful details are ceramics that Sofie designed herself and had made by an artisan in Grottaglie, Puglia—a modern spin on spatterware.
Sofie writes on Instagram of her trip with Samina to source ceramics Our mission was to find all the tableware that would eventually set the Marigold table that...
...is a flair of nordic minimalism modernity but with a respect for Italian handicraft and material too At right a bundle of wildflowers foraged from Rome s Aurelian walls
Each of the handmade details are also available via Marigold’s Corner Shop, to the delight of those far from Rome.