Dinner in the Deep: Why Quarries Are Having a Cultural Moment

A dinner table carved into a marble wall. A DJ set echoing through limestone caverns. What once were forgotten spaces are now reinvented as venues for cultural experiences happening today.

Quarries; those dramatic, often forgotten scars in the landscape - are being reimagined as atmospheric venues for events, festivals and fashion presentations. And it works. There’s something arresting about the rawness of the space: the light, the acoustics, the scale. It’s not just a setting, it’s part of the story.

Take the recent collaboration between Kith and Giorgio Armani, who hosted a one-night-only dinner inside a working marble quarry in Tuscany. The visual impact was extraordinary. Walls of white stone rising around a long table lit by candlelight, guests surrounded by the very material that built Italian cities.

Or Mango’s Summer Club dinner in Menorca, held in the island’s 200-year-old Lithica quarry. The space became part catwalk, part moon landing with guests dining beneath towering stone formations and glowing light installations, surrounded by silence and sculpture.

Then there’s Into the Valley Festival, which took place inside a disused Swedish limestone quarry. The natural acoustics created a soundscape unlike anything a warehouse or field could offer. And Italian collective Tavolata continues to host intimate dinners in similar spaces where the setting, untouched and elemental, becomes the centrepiece.

So why the quarry? Maybe it's the contrast, nature meets intention. Maybe it's the drama. Or maybe we’re just craving something real: places that weren’t built to impress, but do anyway.

One thing is clear: the ground beneath us is no longer just a foundation, it’s the venue.