Miracle in Milan/2

see part one

While there are many great names in Milan that have opened new restaurants, there are even more high-quality bistronomy offers that trace a common trend in Milan as well as in other European cities.

To begin with, we’d like to mention Rebelot, created by Matias Perdomo: it is next door to Pont de Ferr, and after being born as a bar where you could eat, it is becoming a restaurant where you can drink (good wines, the cellar is the same as its twin restaurant, and it is managed by Maida Mercuri, while the bartender is Oscar Quagliarini) thanks to Brazilian Mauricio Zillo, who many – including us – believe he’s destined to be as good as the Uruguayan chef. This is a nice news, as well as that given by the poker of aces formed by Berton-Vudafieri-Fiorin-Rigatti: Pisacco, a gastro-bistro in Brera; Dry, by Simone Lombardi, in the building opposite pulls out of the oven some of the best pizzas in town, pairing them with cocktails signed by Guglielmo Miriello; and the last born, Turbigo, this time in the Navigli area, opened all day long to satisfy every kind of edible desire, with a chef under 30 in the kitchen, namely Neapolitan Raffaele Lenzi, previously with Bruno Barbieri at Arquade.

This formula is more suitable for a more bohemian area of Milan, so much so that it is replicated in two nearby novelties, namely Taglio and Elita. The former is a cafe-shop-cocktail-bar-restaurant, a treasure full of good things created by four partners including Gianluca Biscalchin, that can boast, at the bar counter, Umberto Consiglio, and in the kitchen Domenico della Salandra, which gives to it a rather classic character; the latter (here) focuses on cocktails created by Miguel Angel Palau, previously at the Adrià brothers’ 41°, and has in the kitchen the once chef of Enocratia Eugenio Boer, offering a mix of Italian, South American and Asian tradition.

We then move a little to discover another restaurant worth trying: in Via Savona there’s Al Fresco, which may hint at the nearby San Vittore prison (in Italian, “al fresco” is slang for “in prison”) though it certainly refers to the green-style that characterizes the setting. How about their menu? It is a lighter and more casual version of the temple in Via Montecuccoli, we said: because in the kitchen there’s Kokichi Takahashi who follows the inputs given by his historic mentors, namely Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani, chefs at Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia.

While another duet, the one formed by Nespor-Roncoroni of Al Mercato, these past few months has livened up the Noodle bar in Viale Bligny, with a menu between Far West and Far East and cocktails from Tucci by Atomic bar, we also welcome two brand new novelties, born out of a bet of as many favourite “pupils”. Daniel is Daniel Canzian’s creature: Gualtiero Marchesi wanted him as his executive chef at Marchesino and now he tries to pursue an adventure of his own in Via Castelfidardo, in the same Moscova-Porta Nuova-Repubblica area where even Misha Sukyas’s L’Alchimista, run by this imaginative Italian-Armenian globetrotter with the approval of Israeli Moshik Roth, advocate of the techno-emotional trend in Amsterdam, is taking off.

Two steps further and you get to the first restaurant in Milan by Baladin, in Via Solferino, serving hamburgers and beers guaranteed by Teo Musso with a few not very favourable initial reviews. In piazza XXV Aprile, that is to say another 200 metres further, we await the opening of Eataly which will include the new Alice by Viviana Varese (we spoke about it yesterday). Works are in full swing in the old restaurant in Via Adige 9, now taken over by Stefano Sardella and Davide Viviani to transform it into a bistro) and, just opposite, the historic Princi – renewed and enlarged – which will also offer Franco Pepe’s Neapolitan style pizzas.

And while walking another 500 metres, in the new Piazza Aulenti and thus in the shadow of the skyscrapers a new Red Feltrinelli restaurant-cum-bookshop has been opened, another eclectic address is finally that of Larte di via Manzoni 5, a hostaria-cafe-art-gallery that plans to invite a famous chef every month. By the way, we’re curious about the brand new Tartufotto, in Via Cusani: it will help us understand if Simone Rugiati, besides having a talent for television, has also got that of a real chef.