A Table That Celebrates a Sacred Tradition
The light catches it first. Not the wood, but the salt. A crystalline river, jagged and pure, flows through the heart of a colossal slab of wood. It looks like a fissure in the earth, a geological event frozen in time and placed in a dining room. This isn’t just a place to eat. It is a statement.
But what is it saying?
This is “The Bread of Life,” a table born from a rather unlikely collaboration between a chef who fights waste and an architect who makes water from air. Chef Massimo Bottura, the force behind the three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana and a man whose culinary philosophy is as famous as his food, partnered with American architect David Hertz. Hertz, known for his work with The Skysource/Skywater Alliance, isn’t your typical designer. He builds machines that pull humidity from the atmosphere, a technology he’s deployed in places like AlUla, the ancient desert city in Saudi Arabia.
So, the table began with a challenge. Bottura, planning a new restaurant project in AlUla, needed a centerpiece. He didn’t want just furniture; he wanted an icon. He wanted something that embodied his belief that “Cooking is a call to act.” Hertz’s team took on the task, sourcing a single piece of Kauri wood from New Zealand, a material that carries the weight of 50,000 years within its grain.
The wood itself is a time capsule. It tells a story of a world before us, a silent witness to millennia. To carve into it is to converse with history.
The process, however, was anything but ancient. David Hertz’s studio used sophisticated CAD software to map every contour before a CNC machine, a computer-guided carving tool, meticulously sculpted the wood. The result is a surface that feels both natural and deliberately designed. It’s a perfect fusion of organic form and digital precision. The real spectacle, though, is that central river.
It’s not just any salt. The crystals were grown from brine, a byproduct of the water Hertz’s atmospheric water generators produced in the AlUla desert. Think about that. Water, created from the thin desert air, was used, and its residual salts were then painstakingly crystallized over weeks to create this shimmering inlay. The table, therefore, quite literally integrates the DNA of its desert home. It’s a testament to making something from what appears to be nothing, a core tenet of both Bottura’s and Hertz’s work.
The name, “The Bread of Life,” isn’t subtle. It’s about the most fundamental ritual of community: breaking bread. Bottura sees this table as the stage for that sacred act. It’s designed to bring people together, to force a shared experience over the two elements—bread and water—that sustain life. It’s a beautiful idea. It’s also an incredibly luxurious object destined for an exclusive dining experience, a tension that hums just beneath the surface of its polished wood and sparkling salt.
And you can’t talk about an Italian project of this magnitude without talking about pasta. Of course, there’s pasta. Giuseppe Di Martino, of the historic Pastificio Di Martino, has joined this ecosystem of creators. The Di Martino family has been making pasta in Gragnano for generations, and for Bottura’s AlUla project, they are supplying a special product made from 100% Italian durum wheat and pure local spring water. It’s another layer of tradition, another thread of Italian excellence woven into this venture.
Giuseppe Di Martino believes the collaboration showcases a shared Italian genius for blending heritage with forward-thinking design, a quality he sees in everything from Ferrari to Gucci. The project, for him, isn’t just about food but about a certain kind of cultural projection.
So the table waits. It sits as a monument to sustainability, technology, and a tradition so old it’s almost myth. It’s a piece built from 50,000-year-old wood and salt from water pulled from desert air. A contradiction. A conversation piece. The stage is set, the philosophy is baked in, and soon, guests will gather around it.
The first dish served will, naturally, feature Di Martino’s pasta.
