Quadrilatero Romano

The neighbourhood takes its name from its shape: a near-perfect rectangle of streets still following the cardo and decumanus, the two main axes the Romans laid out when they founded Augusta Taurinorum two thousand years ago. Almost none of the ancient masonry survives above street level, but the grid itself never changed, so simply walking its straight, right-angled lanes traces one of the clearest surviving Roman town plans anywhere in northern Italy.

That Roman-era order sat beneath centuries of ordinary, unglamorous city life, and by the mid-20th century the district had become one of Turin's more rundown corners, its low rents attracting little beyond neglect. Its turnaround began only in the 1990s, when bars, independent designers and small restaurants started moving in, drawn by the cheap space and human scale of the streets — a revival led above all by Via Giulia di Barolo and Via Sant'Agostino, which are now among the district's liveliest addresses.

Turin has long argued, alongside Milan, that it invented the modern aperitivo — the early-evening ritual of a Martini or spritz accompanied by a generous, often free spread of snacks — sometime in the late 19th century. Whichever city can claim the true first, the Quadrilatero is where Turin makes its case most persuasively today, its outdoor tables filling from early evening with a scene that still feels closer to a shared civic ritual than a marketing gimmick.

One of the palazzi along Via Sant'Agostino once housed the Piedmontese Senate, the region's seat of judicial power before Italian unification — a reminder that beneath the bars and boutiques, this was Turin's administrative heart for centuries, not just its Roman one.

The Quadrilatero is at its best after dark, when its bars and aperitivo tables fill the narrow streets and the district's evening character takes over — plan an evening here rather than a rushed daytime pass-through if you want to see what draws Turinese out night after night.

That said, it's worth a slower daytime visit too, when the independent boutiques, ateliers and small design shops that give the district its name are actually open and easier to browse without the evening crowds.