Why you should experience Sakakura Sarpi in Milan, Italy.
Sakakura Sarpi is a Japanese izakaya where Paolo Sarpi's Asian food culture, Leo Hong's sake expertise, long-cooked ramen broths and a drinks program reaching deep into Japanese brewing converge inside the original home of a growing Milan restaurant group.
Set along Via Paolo Sarpi near Via Bramante and just steps from Arco della Pace, the restaurant occupies a compact storefront along the pedestrian spine of Milan's Chinatown, where Chinese restaurants and food shops have increasingly been joined by businesses representing cuisines from across East Asia. A visible kitchen and closely arranged tables keep cooking near the dining room, with Japanese decorative elements extending the izakaya concept into a deliberately small setting. Ramen anchors the food program, joined by donburi, skewers, dumplings, raw fish and Japanese sweets, with a sake specialist guiding pairings across a collection ranging from sparkling bottles to fuller junmai styles. The result is a Paolo Sarpi restaurant where noodles and rice dishes provide the foundation for a broader exploration of Japanese drinking culture, establishing the format that Sakakura later carried to Viale Col di Lana and Via Rubens.
What you should know about Sakakura Sarpi.
Sakakura Sarpi is best known for bringing sake sommelier Leo Hong's interest in Japanese brewing together with his second major culinary pursuit, ramen, inside a contemporary Milanese interpretation of the izakaya. Hong created Sakakura around the idea of a traditional Japanese gathering place built equally around food, friends and sake. Ramen became the culinary foundation from the beginning. Hong placed extended broth cooking behind that focus, working across meat, seafood and vegetable bases to build the intensity required for different bowls. Sake formed the parallel strand. A specialist sommelier role became part of the restaurant, connecting individual bottles with dishes and introducing guests to brewing styles beyond the familiar warm carafe. Sakakura developed its drinks selection across sparkling sake, junmai, junmai daiginjo and richer bottles suited to warm service. Producers now represented include Hatsumago, Kawatsuru Shuzo, Soto, Kenbishi and Konishi. The Kawatsuru Shuzo X Shibaraya Original No.315 uses Sanuki olive yeast from Kagawa, extending the collection into a brewing experiment tied to the Seto Inland Sea. Konishi Kokuagari reaches into another chapter of Japanese brewing through a koji culture dating to the 1940s that Konishi revived in 2000. A structured tasting called My First Time Experience presents three ochoko, and the larger guided format expands to five pours chosen by the sake sommelier. Sakakura subsequently grew beyond its original Sarpi address. New restaurants on Viale Col di Lana and Via Rubens turned Hong's initial ramen-and-sake project into a three-location Milan operation, with the newer branches retaining the combination of long-cooked broths, izakaya dishes and specialist sake service established on Via Paolo Sarpi.
Dento ramen builds its broth from miso, pork and chicken before chashu, ajitama, pak choi, moyashi, corn, naruto, nori and negi complete the bowl. Kaisen ramen changes the base to shellfish and white fish, then adds prawns, salmon, seared squid, wakame, ikura, naruto, nori and negi. Yasei ramen takes a creamier route through chicken broth enriched with peanut butter and soy milk, carrying pork ragù, pak choi, bean sprouts, egg, nori and chile oil above it. Tori teriyaki don places chicken over steamed rice with scrambled egg, yakitori sauce, sesame, seaweed and spring onion. Unagi don pairs steamed rice with eel, egg, sesame, ginger, marinated cucumber, seaweed and spring onion. Usuzukuri keeps fish raw through thin carpaccio dressed with ponzu, then yakitori brings chicken onto skewers under a teriyaki glaze. Gyoza divide between meat and prawn fillings, giving the smaller izakaya section two dumpling preparations beside miso soup and goma wakame. Dorayaki closes with matcha and azuki, and mochi extends the sweet selection through yuzu, matcha, black sesame, raspberry and other fillings. Sake changes the final register through sparkling Hatsumago Yukikoibana, crisp Soto Junmai Daiginjo, robust Kenbishi Kuromatsu and the naturally strong Sempuku Shinriki, giving the food program several brewing styles to work against broth, grilled meat, eel and raw fish.
How to fold Sakakura Sarpi into your trip.
Sakakura Sarpi works as the meal anchor for an afternoon tracing Milan's nineteenth-century funerary architecture, tram-building industry and the design prize that grew alongside Italy's postwar manufacturing culture.
Begin at Cimitero Monumentale, conceived after decades of debate over a new civic burial complex and developed by Carlo Maciachini from the 1860s on territory then marking the boundary between compact Milan and surrounding agricultural land. Maciachini combined Lombard Romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine references across the vast complex, with the Central Famedio becoming the resting place of Alessandro Manzoni and later commemorating figures including Carlo Cattaneo, Luca Beltrami and Salvatore Quasimodo. Giannino Castiglioni added the Campari family tomb in 1935 with a bronze interpretation of the Last Supper, and Leonardo Bistolfi created the Toscanini family monument around the death of the conductor's young son Giorgio. Continue to Fabbrica del Vapore, where Antonio Carminati, Giuseppe Pozzi and Carlo Toselli established a railway and tram workshop in 1899. Reorganization as Società Italiana Carminati Toselli in 1907 drove major expansion, and the workforce reached 1,350 by 1919 as Milan's tram network grew. Engineers D'Alòi and Cuccoli developed the 1928 tram from the American Peter Witt model, with Carminati Toselli constructing prototype 1501 and more than five hundred subsequent vehicles before the company closed in 1935. Conclude at ADI Design Museum, home of the Compasso d'Oro collection generated by the prize established by La Rinascente in 1954 from an idea by Gio Ponti and Alberto Rosselli. Albe Steiner created its symbol from Adalbert Goeringer's golden divider, ADI assumed organization in 1959 and acquired full ownership in 1967. More than 2,300 awarded and honorably mentioned products and projects now span domestic objects, transportation, communication and industrial production. The progression moves from Maciachini's civic architecture through Carminati Toselli's tram manufacturing into Ponti, Rosselli and Steiner's postwar design prize, connecting three chapters of Milanese making and patronage around Sakakura Sarpi.
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