Why you should experience Hana Restaurant in Milan, Italy.
Hana Restaurant is a refined Japanese restaurant where Washington's residential elegance meets a Milanese project shaped by three local entrepreneurs, a former Nobu sous-chef, award recognition and a longstanding exchange between Japanese technique and Mediterranean ingredients.
Set along Via Paolo Giovio near Corso Vercelli and just steps from Piazza Piemonte, the restaurant occupies a western Milan pocket distinguished by early twentieth-century apartment houses, tree-lined residential streets and the broad commercial axis linking Pagano with the historic center. Stylized cherry blossoms, natural wood and ecru leather establish a restrained interior, joined by polished stones brought from Japan and an onyx counter that places sushi preparation directly before the dining room. Raw fish provides the clearest introduction through sashimi, nigiri, carpacci and tartare, letting the quality and cutting of seafood remain exposed before sauces or stronger accompaniments enter. Hot preparations deepen the encounter through teppan cooking, miso marinades and ingredients such as kataifi, papaya and Mediterranean citrus, revealing the fusion strand that has accompanied Hana through much of its history. The result is a mature Milanese Japanese restaurant whose character emerges through precise sushi work, Mediterranean departures and more than fifteen years of culinary development.
What you should know about Hana Restaurant.
Hana Restaurant is best known for developing a Japanese-Mediterranean approach that began with three Milanese entrepreneurs and reached a decisive culinary chapter under executive chef Gonnage Livera Chandima Ruwan Sampath, who arrived after serving as sous-chef at Nobu Milano. The founders established Hana in 2009 around Japanese cooking adapted with measured Mediterranean influences, creating the foundation Sampath inherited when he took command of the kitchen in 2016. His Nobu background brought substantial experience in the Japanese-international cooking that had already defined Hana's direction, and his arrival produced a new repertoire built to preserve traditional technique alongside more personal combinations. Nest Salmon became one of the clearest signatures of that period, pairing teppan-cooked salmon with kataifi, soy cream and mushrooms; Ebi Martini combined prawns with Martini Dry and papaya; Black Cod Hana applied Japanese miso marinade to Alaskan black cod. Sagi carried the same creative program into raw fish through five spoon-sized sashimi compositions, each finished with its own sauce and topping. Beverage development introduced another named practitioner in Matteo Finotti, Hana's bartender, whose travels in Japan deepened his knowledge of sake before he created the Saké Mojito, a low-alcohol reinterpretation of the Cuban drink that attracted national attention in 2017. Finotti's role continued into Hana's broader drinks program, where his cocktail work sits beside a wine cellar exceeding 150 labels, Japanese whiskies and a sake selection spanning Junmai, Honjozo and Daiginjo styles from multiple Japanese prefectures. Gambero Rosso subsequently awarded Hana its Premio Foglia within its international-restaurant evaluations, with the latest evaluation completed in 2025, extending a history that connects its entrepreneurial origins, a major Nobu-trained chef appointment, distinctive signature dishes, specialist beverage work and formal culinary recognition.
Black Cod Hana gives Sampath's Japanese-Mediterranean approach one of its richest expressions, allowing Alaskan black cod to absorb miso before cooking concentrates the marinade around the fish's naturally fatty flesh. Nest Salmon moves in another direction, placing teppan-cooked salmon against fine strands of kataifi, soy cream and mushrooms so crisp pastry and soft fish arrive within the same composition. Ebi Martini draws prawns toward fruit and spirits through Martini Dry and papaya, using sweetness and botanical notes to depart sharply from the deeper miso profile. Sagi strips the format back to five small portions of mixed sashimi presented on individual spoons, with separate sauces and toppings changing the treatment from one piece to the next. The Saké Mojito extends that cross-cultural instinct into the glass, joining sake with the mint-and-lime structure associated with the Cuban original after Finotti's encounters with the drink's Japanese foundation. Hana's cooking reaches its clearest form across these signatures, where Japanese fish technique provides the discipline and Mediterranean ingredients, spirits and textural contrasts supply the departures.
How to fold Hana Restaurant into your trip.
Hana Restaurant works as the dining endpoint for an afternoon tracing Renaissance patronage, monastic transformation and Milan's long history of institutional care through the Magenta-San Vittore district.
Begin at Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Guiniforte Solari began the Dominican complex in 1463 before Ludovico Sforza's ambitions brought Donato Bramante into its late-fifteenth-century enlargement. Bramante added the great tribune, semicircular apses, columned drum and cloister, as Leonardo da Vinci transformed the convent refectory through The Last Supper, commissioned in 1495 and completed in 1497 with Christ centered among four groups of three apostles immediately after announcing his betrayal. Continue to San Vittore al Corpo, where an early Christian burial zone and fourth-century imperial mausoleum preceded the Benedictine monastery established under Archbishop Arnolfo II during the early eleventh century. Olivetan monks took possession in 1507 and initiated the Renaissance reconstruction later associated with Vincenzo Seregni and Galeazzo Alessi; Napoleonic suppression transformed the adjoining monastery into a military hospital in 1805, beginning its passage through Austrian and Italian military use before the complex became home to Milan's science and technology museum. Conclude at Museo Martinitt e Stelline, devoted to institutions whose roots reach the sixteenth-century orphanages for Milanese boys and girls and the later Pio Albergo Trivulzio. The museum opened in 2009 to unite centuries of charitable history through archival holdings extending from 1800 to 1960 and a Martinitt library exceeding 20,000 volumes, preserving the education, work and welfare systems that shaped generations of vulnerable Milanese children. The progression moves from Sforza patronage and Leonardo's Renaissance intervention at Santa Maria delle Grazie through the religious and military transformations of San Vittore al Corpo into the centuries of civic assistance preserved by Museo Martinitt e Stelline, building an unusually concentrated account of how western Milan's institutions repeatedly changed purpose around Hana.
Where your story begins.
Foresyte Travel reveals places that feel extraordinary long before you arrive.
Experience premium editorial crafted for luxury travelers.
