Restaurant · Matera · Basilicata

900 Restaurant

900 Restaurant in Matera, Basilicata, takes its name from the Italian shorthand for the twentieth century — il Novecento — evoking a period of dramatic transformation for the city and its region. Positioned in the orbit of the UNESCO-listed Sassi, the restaurant offers Lucanian cuisine that acknowledges the tradition and upheaval of a century that fundamentally reshaped southern Italian society and food culture.

At a glance

Type: Restaurant · Lucanian and Italian cuisine
Period: Contemporary
Style: Twentieth-century culinary heritage in a UNESCO World Heritage city
Location: Matera, Basilicata, Southern Italy (40.6710° N, 16.6088° E)

Overview

900 Restaurant is located in Matera, the ancient Basilicatan city whose Sassi cave districts were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993 and served as European Capital of Culture in 2019. The name invokes the twentieth century, a period during which Matera moved from being described by Palmiro Togliatti as “a national disgrace” — due to the poverty of its cave-dwelling population — to becoming one of southern Italy’s most celebrated cultural destinations. The restaurant interprets this arc of transformation through its menu and atmosphere.

History

The twentieth century was a watershed for Matera. In the 1950s, Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi ordered the forced evacuation of some 15,000 Sassi inhabitants into new public housing on the plateau above, a process completed by the 1960s. The abandoned cave districts were then rediscovered first by scholars, then by filmmakers — Pier Paolo Pasolini shot The Gospel According to St Matthew in Matera in 1964 — and eventually by UNESCO. A restaurant named 900 situates itself consciously within this narrative of memory, loss, and recovery.

What you see

Restaurants in the Matera Sassi area frequently feature stone interiors that echo the tufa geology of the ravine, with low barrel-vaulted ceilings and exposed rock faces lending an archaeological atmosphere to the dining experience. The menu at an establishment with this name and location would typically engage with mid-century Lucanian cooking: thick pasta formats with slow-cooked sauces, preserved meats, peperoni cruschi, and hearty legume soups that sustained the cave-dwelling community through the decades of deprivation the restaurant’s name references.

Cultural significance

The Sassi of Matera were the setting for some of the most discussed images of twentieth-century Italian poverty, and their transformation into a thriving cultural quarter represents one of the most remarkable heritage rehabilitation stories in Europe. Dining here engages visitors in a history that runs from prehistoric troglodyte settlement through Magna Graecia, Byzantine monasticism, and the twentieth-century social drama that put Matera on the world stage.

Practical information

Location: Matera, Basilicata, Italy
Hours: Check official website or contact the restaurant directly for current opening hours
Reservations: Recommended, especially during festivals and summer months

Getting there

Matera is accessible from Bari via the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane (FAL) railway (approx. 1.5 hours) or by road via the SS7. The nearest airports are Bari Karol Wojtyła (BRI, approx. 65 km) and Brindisi (BDS, approx. 100 km). Within Matera, the Sassi area is best explored on foot along the ancient stepped streets and terraces of the ravine.

Sources & resources

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