Why you should experience Sakeya in Milan, Italy.
Sakeya is a pioneering Japanese restaurant where Sant'Ambrogio's historic western center, Lorenzo Ferraboschi and Maiko Takashima's decade-spanning connection with Japan, Masaki Inoguchi's Kyoto cooking and one of Europe's deepest sake selections converge inside Italy's first dedicated house of sake.
Set along Via Cesare da Sesto near Corso Genova and just steps from Sant'Ambrogio, the restaurant occupies an intimate address between Milan's medieval religious center and the streets descending toward the Navigli. Flavio Angiolillo shaped the original interior through dark wood, exposed brick and vintage furnishings sourced from Japanese markets during a trip to Tokyo, with an illuminated wall of bottles establishing sake as the physical focus of the dining room. Restaurant, bar and shop share the premises, and the current collection reaches 150 labels sourced through connections spanning all 47 Japanese prefectures. The result is a Sant'Ambrogio restaurant where Japanese brewing culture extends far beyond the glass, shaping the room, retail operation and food program around a collection assembled through direct relationships across Japan.
What you should know about Sakeya.
Sakeya is best known for turning Lorenzo Ferraboschi and Maiko Takashima's personal connection between Italy and Japan into Italy's first dedicated sake house and one of Europe's most ambitious centers for Japanese rice wine. Ferraboschi graduated in Industrial Design from Politecnico di Milano and won a competition in 2000 to design showrooms in Japan. He spent the following decade there as an interior and industrial designer, with professional work extending to Sony and Samsung. Japan also brought Ferraboschi together with Takashima, who later became his wife and professional partner. After returning to Italy, sake sent by his Japanese mother-in-law prompted Ferraboschi to explore whether the drink he had enjoyed throughout his years in Tokyo had an Italian market. Expo Milano 2015 gave the idea momentum. Ferraboschi founded Sake Company that year with Takashima and two friends, creating an online importer devoted to premium Japanese sake. The Sake Sommelier Association soon selected him as its Italian partner, and he completed its full educational path before becoming the association's third international Sake Educator. Sakeya followed on December 15, 2016 as Sake Company's first physical retail operation, combining a shop, cocktail bar and restaurant under one roof. Collaborations with Japanese prefectures supplied sake, regional foods, artisan objects, recipes and workshops, with individual prefectures receiving dedicated monthly programs during the original concept. Ferraboschi extended that work in 2017 by founding Milano Sake Challenge, incorporating food pairing and design judging into an international competition. His Guida al sake followed in 2021 through Trenta Editore. Gambero Rosso awarded Sakeya its Valorizzazione del Sake special prize with JFC Italia in the Sushi 2025 guide. In September 2026, the Japan Sake Brewers Association Junior Council selected Ferraboschi as a Sake Samurai after his educational work had trained more than 1,500 sake sommeliers across Italy.
Chef Masaki Inoguchi places charcoal cooking at the center of the current kitchen through sumibi kushiyaki, with the grill visible near the entrance and fifteen skewered preparations forming a substantial section of the menu. Kuruma ebi shiraae lightly sears kuruma prawn before pairing it with tofu cream, turnip-green sauce and a savory miso meringue. Kensaki squid undergoes kobujime curing against kombu, then fresh-pea cream, cured egg-yolk bottarga and crisp kombu chips extend the seaweed's influence across several textures. Hiramasa remains raw as sashimi and meets crisp puffed rice, fresh sprouts and miso scented with Japanese pepper. Gindara 2.0 develops black cod through ginger and yuzu, bringing citrus against the fish's rich flesh. A5 Wagyu shifts cooking to the table, where charcoal supplies the final heat directly to the beef. Three tasting menus, Ume, Take and reservation-only Matsu, organize Inoguchi's broader repertoire at increasing depth. Sake remains integrated into that cooking through individual glass pours selected from the 150-label collection, with Japanese whisky, gin, shochu and awamori extending the drinks program into distillates made from ingredients including sweet potato, sesame and sake kasu.
How to fold Sakeya into your trip.
Sakeya works as the meal anchor for an afternoon tracing Ambrose's late-Roman Milan, Renaissance monastic rebuilding and the extraordinary preservation of sixteenth-century painting inside one of the city's former Benedictine complexes.
Begin at Sant'Ambrogio, whose construction began under Bishop Ambrose in 379 on a necropolis beyond the Roman walls. Ambrose transferred the bodies of martyrs Protasius and Gervasius into the new Basilica Martyrum in 386 and was buried beside them after his death in 397. Archbishop Angilbert II commissioned Volvinus to create the golden altar during the ninth century, and the church received its Romanesque reconstruction between the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries before Ludovico il Moro commissioned Donato Bramante to rebuild the clergy house and adjoining monastic spaces from 1492. Continue to San Vittore al Corpo, where an ancient Christian burial area developed near a fourth-century imperial mausoleum before Benedictines established a monastery during the Middle Ages. Olivetan monks assumed control in 1507 and began a rebellious rebuilding campaign. Vincenzo Seregni and Galeazzo Alessi participated in the sixteenth-century architectural work, followed by a dense decorative campaign of stucco and fresco that turned the interior into one of Milan's major late-Renaissance church ensembles. Conclude at San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore, rebuilt from 1503 within a Benedictine women's monastery established centuries earlier among surviving Roman fortifications. Ippolita Sforza and Alessandro Bentivoglio became major patrons of its sixteenth-century decoration, and their daughter Bianca entered the monastery before becoming abbess as Suor Alessandra in 1522. Bernardino Luini and his workshop dominate the extensive fresco cycle, joined by work associated with Boltraffio, Vincenzo Foppa, the Campi brothers and Simone Peterzano. The progression moves from Ambrose's fourth-century basilica through the Olivetans' rebuilding of San Vittore into the Bentivoglio patronage and Lombard painting of San Maurizio, connecting burial, monastic power and Renaissance art across the historic district surrounding Sakeya.
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