Rome, Palazzo Barberini now has a restaurant: it's called Serre Barberini

In Rome, Palazzo Barberini, one of the two sites of the National Galleries of Ancient Art, is getting a café restaurant. It is called Serre Barberini and is now open in the 19th-century greenhouse in the gardens of Palazzo Barberini. The greenhouse, accessible from both Via XX Settembre 2 and Via Quattro Fontane 13, can also be visited without purchasing a museum entrance ticket.

The greenhouse was presumably designed by architect Francesco Azzurri (1827-1901) and construction was completed in the late 19th century. The building has recently undergone extensive and lengthy restoration and re-functionalization work. It is a 37-meter-long structure oriented to maximize solar gain. It consists of a load-bearing masonry structure combined with a steel and glass system on the south, east and west fronts, with cast-iron columns. A fountain is located in the center.

To make the interior spaces livable while enhancing the primal nature of the greenhouse as a “solar machine,” photovoltaic glass-glass panels were installed on the sloping roof. This intervention transforms the glazing into a diaphragm capable of filtering the sun’s rays, thus ensuring the full energy sustainability of the environment and ensuring a pleasant indoor temperature.

The furnishings of Serre Barberini are inspired by late 19th-century cafeterias in floral style, with an aesthetic of sobriety and homogeneity of the whole. This design harmonizes type and colors of the interior and exterior furnishings with the structure of the greenhouse and the surrounding space. The most distinctive furnishing element is the play of light and shadow created by the light entering the greenhouse, accompanied by the sound of water from the central fountain.

The garden of Palazzo Barberini, originally a magnificent theater of nature and art in the 17th century, reflects the passion for flowers of Urban VIII’s grandsons, Cardinals Francesco and Antonio. The planting was based on the botanical knowledge of Jesuit Giovan Battista Ferrari and included a series of statues from the Barberini’s collection of antiquities. Today the garden features flowerbeds bordered by hedges and trees, a cork gardeners’ cottage dating from the period between the 19th and 20th centuries, and the Egyptian granite stele of Amon-Ra from the temple of Isis in Campo Marzio.

Serre Barberini, managed by Panda Catering, offers cafeteria, brunch, aperitif and lunch services. The gastronomic proposal considers the Italian and regional food and wine heritage, the internationality and heterogeneity of the clientele, and the seasonality of the products. It is possible to organize exclusive events inside the greenhouse, offering an experience in a historic and refined setting. Serre Barberini is therefore a place where history, art and gastronomy meet, and above all it will guarantee an extra service to visitors to the National Galleries of Ancient Art.

“The opening of Serre Barberini,” comments Thomas Clement Salomon, director of the National Galleries of Ancient Art, “today finally represents an opportunity to endow the museum with a service that has been absent until now and to offer its visitors, but also the citizenship, the neighborhood and tourists, a place to stop and meet in one of the most extraordinary places in Rome, a secret Italian garden that we hope from now on will be increasingly known, admired and experienced by the general public.”

Rome, Palazzo Barberini now has a restaurant: it's called Serre Barberini

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