Iyo Aalto — Milan, Italy

As the city of Milan swells year by year, so too does its increasingly cosmopolitan restaurant scene, with Japanese restaurants — from homespun cafes, to buzzy noodle bars and high-end sushi — leading the pack both in number and quality. The indisputable champion among them? Michelin-starred Iyo, which has been so successful, its creator Claudio Liu, has opened a second outpost in Porta Nuova, the city's budding business centre.

Local architect Maurizio Lai has conceived a no-expensed-spared interior. Together with Poliform Contract, furniture and fittings are custom-made from a sleek palette of Canaletto walnut, Grigioverde Porphyry stone and brass. Cut roughly, the grey-green stone adds a grainy texture to the walls, which are punctuated with vertical slits to soften the stone’s intensity and introduce light. Lai then devised a monumental installation comprised of staggered layers of smoked, backlit glass to mark the entranceway, a motif that is carried through to the dining room in the form of a suspended grid of similarly illuminated panes. 'We used natural materials throughout to imbue the space with a welcoming, home-like feeling,' Lai explains of the concept, which occupies the ground floor of a newly-constructed skyscraper. 

Organised into two separate rooms, guests can choose between an eight-seater sushi counter or the 38-cover dining room, which serves an eclectic menu of Japanese bistro fare punched-up with European influences and ingredients. Offerings include dishes like seared tuna with wasabi and pak choi; eel, foie gras and kumquat; and Iberian pork with shallots and chingensai. This, along with a 1600-bottle wall-mounted wine cellar, designed to appease the strict Michelin standards, we suspect the stars will again be falling on Milan sometime soon.

INFORMATION

Website

ADDRESS

Piazza Alvar Aalto, 20124 Milano MI

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