The House of Ronin is now complete thanks to omakase

Milan loves Japanese food, an ancient and wide culture that is easily summed up in just one aspect: sushi. It would be a bit like thinking that Italy is mostly about pizza, China about spring rolls, the US about burgers and so on. But this time sushi is the real focal point in the latest offer from group Salva tu alma, owners between Via Canonica and Via Vittorio Alfieri of House of Ronin, the sum of multiple restaurants, spreading over four floors under the same roof.

A little more than one year after opening, the offer is now complete. On the second floor, bordering with the karaoke room, the omakase is such as of Friday 10^th of February and until the 25^th of March, a total of 32 nights and 64 services because they have planned two per day, the first at seven and the second after nine, for a set price of 250 euros, excluding drinks. For info and reservations reservations@houseofronin.it, +39.02.89367101. Quick note: if 250 euros scare you, in Tokyo the tasting menu starts from 420 dollars.

Compared to the first year of activity, this almost-hidden room, a central kitchen and a table on three sides around it, seating a total of eight people, which is a must for this kind of offer, is welcoming a sushi master who is a legend at home, Katsu Nakaji, a partnership that required a long courtship, given his importance. So the counter was taken on multiple times by Italian chefs who were free to improvise, something that will happen again at the end of this partnership.

Sixty-year-old Nakaji, who is in all the top lists, including Michelin and the 50Best, represents the fourth generation of a dynasty of entrepreneurs with 130 years of tasty history rooted in tradition, interpreted by Katsu with a very personal attitude and style. And the client must adapt, or else there are many places that cost little, and are worth as much, but where around the rice you can find or ask for all sorts of things.

Three aspects above all, are now valid at Ronin: he seasons the rice with red rice vinegar, a personal recipe because the soul is in the rice itself. He flavours each piece himself, so forget the little bowl with soya sauce at your disposal. And finally, chopsticks are useless because each mouthful is placed directly on your three central fingers, so you can bring it to your mouth with one recommendation, a rotation of the hand so that you place the sushi upside down, with the rice on top and the fish below. And please do not bite immediately, but wait three seconds so that it reaches the ideal temperature of 30 °C.

Five starters, twelve sushis and a dessert, over the space of over three hours for the test reserved for the press. Between this and that request, the charm of omakase was lost, but if you don’t ask during a preview, when are you supposed to do it? Slices of Sardinian red snapper, tuna belly from the Adriatic Sea, oyster in seaweed sauce, three cuts of Spanish tuna, chargrilled eel, red prawn from Mazara with its liver, squid with mullet roe, amberjack and then wagyu beef in the shabu shabu version and an omelette that prepared the palate for an Egg gelato with a sauce of black sugar from Okinawa. Only then the curtain ideally fell.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso