Why you should experience Don Juan in Milan, Italy.
Don Juan is an enduring Argentine restaurant where Porta Romana's historic southern gateway meets Marlene Gomes and Giorgio Beretta's devotion to Argentine food culture, a pioneering imported parrilla and a country-house interior assembled through objects drawn directly from the nation's regional traditions.
Set along Via Altaguardia near Viale Sabotino and just steps from Porta Romana's nineteenth-century residential streets, the restaurant occupies a southern Milan pocket where compact apartment blocks gather around the route that has connected the historic center with the former Spanish gate for centuries. A young Argentine architect conceived the interior after the casas de campo of the countryside, dividing it into themed rooms whose decoration carries specific geographical and cultural references. Sala Bandejas incorporates wooden trays from Argentine farms, and Sala Salteña gathers craft objects from Salta, among the country's major centers for traditional artisan work. Sala Tamburi goes further through original drums made by the craftsman who produced instruments for Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa, giving the room a direct connection with one of Latin America's defining twentieth-century musical figures. The result is a Porta Romana restaurant whose physical character was constructed through Argentine objects and craftsmanship long before immersive regional dining became common across Milan.
What you should know about Don Juan.
Don Juan is best known for Marlene Gomes and Giorgio Beretta's role in establishing Argentine parrilla culture within Milan's restaurant landscape after opening the restaurant in May 2000. Gomes, a Brazilian photographer, had developed an interest in gastronomy through exotic catering, and Beretta, originally from Como, approached the field through Milan's Latin-American festival in Assago; their shared attachment to South America turned those separate experiences into Don Juan. Gomes then traveled to Argentina to recruit cooks and dining-room personnel from established restaurants, bringing a substantial Argentine contingent into the original team. Authentic asado demanded another intervention: the founders imported from Argentina a height-adjustable charcoal parrilla that was new to the Italian market, positioning it in full view of both the dining rooms and the street. The grill subsequently became the domain of Córdoba-born Rodrigo Rivarola, who emerged as the restaurant's principal chef and maintained its focus on slow charcoal cooking. Gomes and Beretta expanded the idea through the more informal Don Juanito on nearby Corso di Porta Vigentina, retaining the same meat sourcing in a younger format. Wine developed into another major Argentine specialization, with a collection reaching 300 labels and producers including Catena Zapata, Rutini Wines, Pulenta Estate, Achaval Ferrer, Luigi Bosca, Aleanna-El Enemigo and Michel Rolland; in 2016 Don Juan secured the Italian exclusivity for Rutini Malbec 2013. More than two decades after its founding, Gambero Rosso placed Don Juan in its international-restaurant selection and awarded it two Mappamondi, preserving the connection between the founders' original Argentine project and formal recognition within Italian dining.
Asado begins with the parrilla itself, where distance between glowing charcoal and beef is adjusted during cooking so thicker cuts develop a roasted exterior without losing their interior juices. Asado Maradona applies a slower treatment to beef ribs before finishing them over the grill, then pairs the meat with braising jus and yuca purée. Parrillada Argentina broadens the fire treatment across ribs, entraña, Angus rump, sausage and morcilla, producing distinct combinations of fat, smoke and char from several cuts in one serving. Tuétano a la brasa places marrow directly into the charcoal repertoire and accompanies its molten richness with rustic toast, and sashimi de lomo takes beef in another direction through thin slices of seared tenderloin, soy and sesame. Empanadas introduce baked pastry around ham and cheese, chicken or vegetables before flan casero closes with dulce de leche and whipped cream. Argentine wine follows the same geographical breadth as the cooking, moving from Mendoza Malbec to Patagonian Pinot Noir and giving the parrilla a pairing tradition rooted in the same country as its fire technique.
How to fold Don Juan into your trip.
Don Juan works as the dinner endpoint for an afternoon following the eastern side of Porta Romana toward institutions created through Milan's centuries-long relationship between charitable patronage, medicine and urban space.
Begin at Giardino della Guastalla, commissioned by Paola Ludovica Torelli, Countess of Guastalla, as part of the charitable college she established for young women and completed in 1555 as an Italian garden. Its later architectural layers include a Baroque fishpond once supplied by the Naviglio running along present-day Via Francesco Sforza and a neoclassical tempietto by Luigi Cagnola; Milan acquired the complex in 1938, when Renzo Gerla and Gaetano Fassi reorganized the architecture and planting for public use. Continue to Ca' Granda, founded after Francesco Sforza's 1451 promise to Milan and formally initiated by ducal decree in 1456 with Bianca Maria Visconti as a central supporter of the hospital project. Filarete designed the vast complex around a modular rectangular scheme with cruciform patient wards, and later work by the Solari, Giovanni Antonio Amadeo and Francesco Maria Richini carried construction across more than three centuries, creating one of Europe's major early hospital complexes. Conclude at Rotonda della Besana, begun in 1695 when the Ospedale Maggiore required additional burial capacity and developed around the cemetery known as the Foppone. The central church of San Michele Arcangelo ai Nuovi Sepolcri rose during the early eighteenth century, and a surrounding portico completed in 1731 expanded the sepulchral structure with financial support from silk merchant Giambattista Annone; after funerary use ended, the complex passed through military, agricultural and hospital functions before becoming municipal property and a public cultural site. The progression moves from Torelli's sixteenth-century charitable college and garden through the Sforza hospital's grand architecture into the separate cemetery created when that institution's burial system reached its limits, tracing three physically distinct consequences of Milanese philanthropy and healthcare around Porta Romana.
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