Rome’s bar scene is in mourning once again. After the recent loss of Marco Zampilli, February 8 will mark the permanent closure of Ru.de Centocelle. And when a place like Ru.de shuts its doors, words inevitably arrive a step behind what it truly meant. Ru.de worked as a place before it worked as a venue. Its strength lay in being a fixed point in the everyday life of the neighborhood. The street-facing bar counter and the constant flow of people gradually created a shared habit, rooted in that specific stretch of space and time. This is how Ru.de grew, moving in step with the evolution of one of Rome’s most unvarnished districts.
Ru.de Centocelle Closes
After eight years, Ru.de Centocelle will close for good on February 8, a date that comes only a few months after the passing of one of its founders, Marco Zampilli, making the moment especially delicate. The closure takes on the meaning of a collective farewell. The final Sunday becomes something to be lived through with those who frequented the bar: with music, with drinks, holding memory and ongoing life together rather than pulling them apart.
What Centocelle Loses without Ru.de
For Centocelle, the void will be immediate. Ru.de was a daily certainty: a point of reference, a place you could stop by without an appointment. A bar able to welcome different moments of the day and different kinds of people. A way of being together that quietly built community, night after night.
The loss weighs on Roman mixology as well. Ru.de showed that quality could thrive far from the city center and earn authority even in a working-class neighborhood. A trailblazer for the area, “Ru.de was born as a mission,” says co-founder Cristiano Ricci. “Marco and I wanted to bring back to Centocelle, where we grew up, everything we had learned elsewhere. To switch on a light here and prove that you could drink well in this part of town too.” The idea was simple: welcome everyone and make people feel at home. “We always wanted Ru.de to be an accessible place, where you could spend an easy evening and, at the same time, experience something different. Once inside, you were cut off from whatever was happening outside.”
The Birth of Ru.de
Over the years, the Ru.de project conceived by Marco Zampilli and Cristiano Ricci took on a clearer shape, narrowing the distance between bar and guest and focusing as much on hospitality as on cocktail research. “I followed Ru.de from the very beginning, handling communication and social media, but above all living the project from the inside,” explains Valerio Orvieto, a close friend of Marco and Cristiano. “Ru.de was a real journey, free of performance anxiety, driven by a pioneering and very open spirit. That freedom allowed us to play, to experiment, and never take ourselves too seriously. We told the story of Ru.de with irony, even poking fun at certain hype mechanisms. It was a coherent way of narrating what the place truly was. Because this bar was always a family.”
Marco Zampilli and His Legacy in Rome
Ru.de was also Marco Zampilli, who died tragically at 42 in an accident in August 2025. Zampilli truly belonged to the neighborhood and, together with his friend Cristiano, had placed everything on their bar on Via dei Castani. “Marco and I completed each other. We had very different, almost opposite personalities, and that balance worked,” recalls Ricci. “He was a natural leader, always on the front line. He had a rare kind of ambition, grounded in values rather than results, and he carried it forward with disarming ease.” His absence has left a deep void. “He knew how to put people at ease. It was hospitality in its purest form. That’s the greatest legacy he left us,” adds Orvieto.
Now comes the moment of goodbye, with all the emotional weight it carries and the awareness of having lived through eight full years. Ru.de closes, while the memory of Marco, of the people, the drinks, the laughter remains vivid. The final toast takes on a necessary meaning: a celebration of life in the place that represented it day after day. As Orvieto puts it, “The closure is not the end of a dream. The dream, in truth, was fulfilled. And for eight years we lived it together, all the way.”
The Friends of Ru.de
The voices that follow come from within the bar world: colleagues who crossed paths with Marco, Cristiano, and Valerio at different moments. People who walked through Ru.de’s doors and others who observed it from the outside, fully aware of its weight in Rome’s mixology landscape.
Leonardo Leuci
“Ru.de gave a real push to changing how we perceive what can—and should—be done in the outskirts of the city. It brought a different approach to the neighborhood, putting quality at the center. People like Marco and his partners, who believed and continue to believe in the periphery, deserve far more attention from both the community and institutions. Anyone betting on quality and bringing virtuous models to complex neighborhoods should be supported. For years Ru.de was a true point of reference. It should be remembered for what it did and what it represented for Rome and for the neighborhood, and for the constant commitment behind the project. Marco will be remembered for truly believing in what he did and for the positivity with which he carried it forward. He will remain an example.”
Patrick Pistolesi
“I’ve always felt very close to Ru.de, right from the start, because we shared a similar style in two different peripheral areas. They were in Centocelle, I was elsewhere, but the context was similar. I remember being struck by their approach, especially since we had just opened Drink Kong. Marco, with his way of being and those big, kind eyes, spoke enthusiastically about my project—without envy, with genuine admiration. That says a lot about who he was. Ru.de was a very brave place: a modern cocktail bar that was, in every sense, a neighborhood bar, far from the areas usually considered central to cocktails. Marco and Cristiano carried that vision forward with great strength. Today it’s hard to talk about it, because Marco was a dear friend. Losing someone like him, in those circumstances, is always devastating.”
Lorenzo Politano
“Ru.de Centocelle was never just a bar. It was a cultural project, a reference point for Rome’s outskirts and for the bar industry, a place that proved quality, vision, and identity can emerge far from the center. It gave a great deal to the neighborhood, to the people, to those who worked there and lived it. Ru.de was Marco Zampilli and Cristiano Ricci’s dream, built with enormous sacrifices and rare determination. The closure doesn’t erase any of that. Nothing of Ru.de will truly end. What remains is the energy, the daily fight, and the courage this place passed on to all of us. Marco will always be a brother to me, before a colleague: a true friend, a great bartender, and one of the greatest Roma supporters I’ve ever known.”
Riccardo Rossi
“For me, Ru.de was the first beacon of mixology in Centocelle. I live and work in a completely different part of Rome, and I discovered the neighborhood thanks to them. It was the dream of two Roman bartenders, two friends, who made it. Neighborhood bars are thriving in Rome, and Centocelle loses its brightest star after already losing Marco last year.”
Images courtesy of Ru.de Centocelle
