SAL8
When a bar grows from the land
There are moments when we realise that some things are not built, but simply allowed to happen.
SAL8 is one of them.
In 2025, it was recognised as Italy’s best “green bar” at the Bar Awards. An important award, of course — but here at Poggio, we received it quietly, almost softly.
Because SAL8 was never created to win something.
It was created because it made sense for it to exist.
Everything begins with what grows
Before the bar, before the cocktails, before the ideas… there is the land.
SAL8 lives within Poggio ai Santi, and that changes everything.
Herbs are not ingredients: they are presences.
Aromas are not additions: they are seasons.
There are days when something disappears, simply because its time has passed. And others when something appears, without ever being truly sought.
This is how each drink takes shape: not from a recipe, but from what is there.
A fragile (and honest) balance
“Green” is a word we hear often.
But here, it is not an aesthetic choice.
It is a limit.
And at the same time, a direction.
Working with what grows around us means accepting that not everything is always available. That not everything can be controlled. That each season brings its own possibilities.
And it is precisely within this limit that SAL8 finds its character.
The people behind it
Behind all of this, there are hands, eyes, attention.
Marco Notari, guiding the work behind the bar with precision and sensitivity.
Andrea Palmieri, welcoming and accompanying each experience.
Rinaldo Cristoforo, in dialogue with the kitchen.
And Giulio Neri, holding everything together without forcing it.
This is not a team that imposes an idea.
It is a team that listens.
A recognition that comes after
The award came later.
After years of attempts, adjustments, good seasons and more difficult ones. After the kind of daily work that often goes unseen.
Perhaps this is why it feels different.
Not as a destination, but as a sign that the path — just as it is — can be understood from the outside as well.
And then it begins again
SAL8 has just opened again for the 2026 season, returning to its natural rhythm.
And it will be, as always, slightly different.
Because nothing here is ever truly repeated.
Each year begins again from what grows, what changes, what remains.
And from that simple first gesture:
to look around, and notice.