I migliori ristoranti

11/10/2025: 3* Michelin, twice winner of World’s 50 Best Restaurants (2016 and 2018). Half of the items are worthy of being associated with one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been. Bean-shaped pasta from the different Italian regions paired with beer; burnt tomato pasta; duck; panettone duck and the milk pre dessert were all divine. Foie Gras in the ice-cream was a nice surprise.

10/10/2025: From Via Stella to VIA BONVESIN DE LA RIVA 9 For me, this "return" can only have this dedication. The Maestro was my "dream" in #MilanoDaBere with that almost musical address, first *** in the "red" 1986 of Italian social-cultural-gastronomic history. And today my quintessential essence can finally be satisfied with Marchesi's reinterpretation of #RisoOroZafferano… The menu title remains unchanged, continuing the previous one "With a little help from my friends"; But this time the friends who "help" Bottura are not the four minstrels from the song, but 13 + himself (I imagine him inspired by Memory), indescribable palatal authors. The tastings interpret Tradition in an almost dystopian way, not dishes but concepts of the time, evoking places that for me (then) existed only on paper: 2 above all, the now legendary TRIGABOLO in Argenta (then an avant-garde restaurant when the adjective was relegated to literal movements); TRATTORIA CANTARELLI in Samboseto, a history that becomes legend (in the ** conquered in 1970 and never lost until its closure on December 31, 1982) And then those names... Nino Bergese, Mirella Cantarelli, Igles Corelli, Corrado Assenza, Fulvio Piergelini... It seems like a symphony performed by Bottura, transposed by the euphoric, joyful-playful, irrepressible Dudamel in the historic 2007 performance of the fourth movement (allegro con fuoco) of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" ... And my imagination is exalted. See you next time. PS. Some will say, yes, it's a beautiful story. And your impressions of the dishes? A review of the restaurant? Bottura among the tables? I take it upon myself to say that at Francescana, these would be just opinions, while the meaning of it all is the EMPATHY with which, for about 3 hours, we immersed ourselves in the world of the Other. ***** PREVIOUS REVIEW June 2020 It was an "incursion" full of magic. The lockdown had inevitably slowed down our processes of discovering (and rediscovering) gastronomic traditions. So the transition from "but who knows if..." to finding a table was almost impromptu. Certainly aided by the slow restart... Bottura cannot be classified. He's simply a UNICORN. There's no point in trying to review him! You arrive in front of the door on Via Stella, ring the bell, and let yourself go. Only to come to your senses upon exiting, when you don't know whether to laugh or believe (the works of art you saw - scattered here and there, yes - but much more on the table). Because here, cuisine, tradition, flavors, invention, creativity, research, vision, and healthy madness blend together in a dimension of pure light. Looking at the successive interpretations, you imagine Bottura always balancing risk and calculation. This time we dreamed of crossing the most famous pedestrian crossing in the world: the one on Abbey Road... See you next time. “With a little help from my friends” ***** PREVIOUS REVIEW I categorize restaurants, but for Osteria Francescana I had to create a separate category: UNICORN We're not in a restaurant but in an art gallery where masterpieces are presented in edible form. Given what I said at the beginning, reviewing Bottura is impossible for me. We can all share our impressions, but here we're at the quintessential level of food. It even transcends the very concept of food, which loses its function as nourishment and projects itself into an absolute and unreal dimension. I'll close with a "beautiful, psychedelic, spin-painted veal, not flame-grilled" interpretation: prodigious.