The Room

Two rooms, really, and in season only one: a deep interior of banquettes and battens, and a stretch of pavement under a white pergola. The wall between them folds away.

Himarë · Vlorë County · Albania

The dining room, navy banquettes and pale spindle-back chairs under a fine timber-batten ceiling and brass fittings, the front folded fully open onto the pavement terrace — The room, looking out through the open front

Inside

The ceiling is a run of fine timber battens laid close together, and it is the thing that sets the pitch of the room — everything under it is quiet. A warm off-white wall behind the lettering, carrying arched panels in a chalky blue-grey a shade darker than it. Navy banquettes down one side, pale spindle-back chairs across from them, tables in a light stone.

Brass fittings hang low over the tables, each one a scatter of thin arms with a lamp at every tip. A lit shelf runs along the wall with bottles standing on it. At the far end the room stops being a room.

Outside

White cross-back chairs with rush seats, white tables, all of it standing directly on the pebbled concrete of the promenade under a white pergola. Bougainvillea is trained along the beam and comes down over the front in season.

Out of season the chairs are tipped in against the tables, the vine on the pergola is bare wood, and a standing board is still out on the paving. The photograph below is that version of the same frontage.

The restaurant front in summer, white channel letters reading GUMA above an open shopfront, bougainvillea trained along the pergola and white cross-back chairs set out on the pavement — The front in summer, from the promenade