Why you should experience Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia in Milan, Italy.
Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia is an ambitious Japanese restaurant where Porta Venezia's cosmopolitan dining culture, Zhu Leonardo's years in à la carte sushi, Nick Maltese Studio's contemporary interiors and a premium interpretation of unrestricted ordering converge near Corso Buenos Aires.
Set along Via Lazzaro Palazzi near Via Panfilo Castaldi and just steps from Corso Buenos Aires, the restaurant occupies a bright corner of Porta Venezia where broad windows connect the dining room with one of Central Milan's densest networks of restaurants, independent shops and early twentieth-century architecture. Nick Maltese Studio designed the interior around cherry wood, marble and clay-based wall finishes, pairing warm surfaces with a visible sushi counter where Xu Shimao and the kitchen team prepare raw fish throughout service. Natural textures carry across the walls through Novacolor's Archi+ Argilla finish, composed from clay and aerial lime, giving the room a restrained backdrop for the restaurant's more elaborate food presentation and under-40 service team. The result is a Porta Venezia sushi restaurant where Zhu Leonardo has paired experienced practitioners, named designers and high-value seafood with an ordering model conceived to bring the standards of his earlier à la carte work into a broader format.
What you should know about Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia.
Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia is best known for Zhu Leonardo's attempt to translate years of à la carte sushi experience into a premium all-you-can-eat restaurant supported by a young management team and specialist chefs. Zhu had spent years working in à la carte sushi before developing Sato around the concept that higher-grade seafood and more complex preparations belonged inside unrestricted ordering as well. The restaurant was operating on Via Lazzaro Palazzi by August 2024, establishing the project within Porta Venezia. Zhu chose the name Sato as a tribute to the mentor whose surname became associated in his memory with learning to love cooking. A defined team gradually emerged around the founder. Roberto Liu directs the restaurant as manager, Vera Ji handles organization and hospitality as vice manager, Xu Shimao leads the sushi counter and Zhang Caiwei directs the wider kitchen. Xu brought a long professional background in sushi to the project, concentrating his work on knife precision, proportion and the treatment of raw fish. Zhang extended the repertoire through cooked Japanese preparations and dishes drawn from Chinese and Thai cooking. Nick Maltese and Fede Pagetti added another creative chapter through Nick Maltese Studio's interior, combining cherry wood and marble with Novacolor's Archi+ Argilla wall finish. Sato expanded the menu again in 2026. Raviolo di Wagyu joined the selection with beef, shiitake and truffle sauce, alongside Pollo Gong Bao and a new UraRicciola built around yellowtail and Gambero Rosso di Mazara del Vallo. The Mazara prawn then became the focus of Sato's World Sushi Day program in June 2026, extending a premium ingredient already present in the sushi repertoire into a dedicated culinary event. Zhu's original concept has grown into a project with distinct management, sushi, hot-kitchen and design contributors, giving the restaurant more organizational depth than its unrestricted ordering model initially reveals.
Zuke Maguro begins with marinated tuna, concentrating the fish through seasoning before the menu moves into more elaborate constructions. Millefoglie di Tonno layers tuna into a composed preparation that changes the texture of the fish without leaving it behind as the central ingredient. Black Cod shifts toward cooked seafood through a rich, soft-fleshed fish associated with Japanese miso preparation. Teppan Kobe brings grilled Wagyu into the sequence, using direct heat to develop fat and browning across the beef. Uramaki Wagyu transfers that richness into sushi rice, joining the beef to the compact structure of a roll. Raviolo di Wagyu takes the same ingredient into another technique through a filling of Wagyu and shiitake with truffle sauce and wasabi. UraRicciola returns to raw seafood with avocado and cream cheese inside, then yellowtail, Gambero Rosso di Mazara del Vallo, yuzu-miso sauce and kizami wasabi across the exterior. Carpaccio di Capesante di Hokkaido adds ponzu and truffle to raw scallop, bringing citrus acidity against the shellfish's sweetness. Tartare of scampi and white fish introduces passion fruit and Pata Negra, pushing marine, fruit and cured-pork flavors into the same preparation. Pad Thai Gamberi closes the wider Asian branch through noodles and shrimp, giving Zhang Caiwei's hot kitchen a distinct role beside Xu Shimao's sushi counter.
How to fold Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia into your trip.
Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia works as the meal anchor for an afternoon tracing the horse-tram depot that preceded Milan's Liberty quarter, Giovanni Battista Bossi's residential architecture and Piero Portaluppi's subterranean project beneath Piazza Oberdan.
Begin at Casa Galimberti, commissioned by the Galimberti brothers from Giovanni Battista Bossi and constructed between 1903 and 1905 on land previously occupied by the Società Anonima degli Omnibus horse-tram depot. The company had operated Milanese public transport from 1861 and kept part of its 280-horse capacity in this area before Edison won the city's electric-tram competition in 1900 and redevelopment opened Via Malpighi. Bossi covered more than 170 square meters of Casa Galimberti's facades with fired polychrome ceramic figures executed by Pio Pinzauti and Ferdinando Brambilla, then integrated wrought iron and floral cement decoration across the balconies. Continue to Casa Guazzoni, built for master builder Giacomo Guazzoni between 1904 and 1906 on another portion of the former tram land. Bossi concentrated the decoration in sculpted cement figures and floral forms, joined by wrought-iron balcony work attributed to Alessandro Mazzucotelli, an hexagonal staircase with cantilevered marble steps and interior paintings associated with Paolo Sala that resurfaced during a 1997 restoration. Conclude at Albergo Diurno Venezia beneath Piazza Oberdan, developed between 1923 and 1926 with Piero Portaluppi among its designers as a subterranean service center for Milanese residents and travelers. Public baths occupied one portion of the 1,200-square-meter complex, with barbers, hairdressers and other services arranged through its separate artisan salon. The facility closed in 2006 before the Comune di Milano entrusted it to FAI in 2015 for preservation and renewed public access. The progression moves from a horse-tram depot replaced by Bossi's ceramic-covered Casa Galimberti through Guazzoni and Mazzucotelli's neighboring Liberty commission into Portaluppi's subterranean Diurno, following three architectural chapters created as Porta Venezia modernized around Sato Sushi Experience Porta Venezia.
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