Why you should experience The Manzoni in Milan, Italy.
The Manzoni is a tactile restaurant where Centro Storico's fashion-and-design culture, Tom Dixon's British industrial design, Italian cooking and a showroom concept built around furniture used before it is purchased converge inside the designer's first permanent Milanese hub.
Set along Via Alessandro Manzoni near Via Romagnosi and just steps from Gallerie d'Italia, nineteenth-century palazzi, luxury boutiques and the stone approaches to Piazza della Scala compress Milanese art, commerce and performance into a tightly drawn central quarter. Design Research Studio organized 5,000 square feet through contrasting rooms, using cork, marble, metallic finishes, dense planting and Dixon furniture to shift the interior between dining hall, bar, shop and the plant-filled Jungle. FAT seating, OPAL globes, FLASH tables and SPRING lights move beyond display pieces here: diners sit beneath, beside and directly upon the products, turning lunch or dinner into prolonged contact with Dixon's work. The result is a distinctive Centro Storico restaurant whose strongest concept comes from dissolving the conventional boundary between hospitality and showroom.
What you should know about The Manzoni.
The Manzoni is best known for giving British designer Tom Dixon a permanent Milanese base after years of temporary Salone del Mobile installations. Dixon had previously created The Restaurant at Rotonda della Besana with Arabeschi di Latte during Fuorisalone 2017, then skipped the 2018 Salone before committing to a year-round project on Via Alessandro Manzoni. Giovanni Macrì initiated the restaurant project, and Dixon's Design Research Studio shaped the L-plan interior as restaurant, showroom, shop and working hub. The Manzoni previewed during Milan Design Week from April 9-14, 2019; bookings began April 15, and the permanent public opening followed in May. The original 100-cover configuration divided forty seats around a large cork table and sixty across smaller tables. Dixon simultaneously introduced FAT seating, stainless-steel SPRING lights and polycarbonate OPAL globes, placing newly launched products into daily use beside established pieces. Giuseppe Daniele assumed culinary leadership in 2022 after professional chapters with Luigi Taglienti, Antonio Guida and Niko Romito; Gabriele Fiorino became his sous chef and Halit Gajda led pastry and bread, with Daniele and Fiorino sharing earlier experience at Lume and Bulgari Milano. Laura Gobbi created 150 The Manzoni in 2023 for the 150th anniversary of Alessandro Manzoni's death. Five collaborative dinners brought Giuseppe Pastorino, Andrea Berton, Roberto Di Pinto, Felix Lo Basso and Terry Giacomello into Daniele's kitchen. By 2025, Paolo Quadrini headed the restaurant and Gaetano Tartaglione was named chef. The venue's current site announces a renovation closure followed by a September reopening, extending the project into another physical chapter seven years after its Design Week debut.
Risotto alla milanese built with Pozzi Riserva rice and seared marrow provides the clearest Milanese anchor in the current evening selection. Octopus arrives with lemon-treated potato, and beef tartare gains salinity from caviar. Creamed-cod tortelli pair butter and sage with another measure of caviar, shifting from the saffron and marrow of the risotto toward a richer seafood pasta. Stuffed artichokes bring pecorino sauce and bottarga into a vegetable-centered course, followed by cotoletta among the principal dishes. Lunch moves in a lighter direction through eggplant with ricotta and tomato, octopus and prawn Catalana, linguine with tuna and fresh tomato, black rice with asparagus cream and pecorino and sea bass with sweet potato and peppers. Fresh pasta is produced in-house, preserving a craft-led culinary counterpoint to the industrial precision of Dixon's surrounding furniture and lighting.
How to fold The Manzoni into your trip.
The Manzoni works as the meal within a Centro Storico route connecting Alessandro Manzoni's private world, Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli's nineteenth-century collecting and Giuseppe Piermarini's theatre for Milanese opera.
Begin at Casa Manzoni, the Via Gerolamo Morone residence Alessandro Manzoni purchased from Alberico De Felber on October 2, 1813 for 107,000 lire. He lived there for nearly six decades, receiving figures including Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Verdi in his study; the Centro Nazionale di Studi Manzoniani, founded in 1937, now occupies the house and maintains a specialist library exceeding 38,000 volumes. Studio De Lucchi directed its 2015 restoration, encompassing 5,800 square meters of interior surfaces and 1,400 square meters of façades. Continue to Museo Poldi Pezzoli, whose founder began transforming his family residence into a house-museum after inheriting his fortune in 1846. Giuseppe Balzaretto, Luigi Scrosati, Giuseppe Bertini and Scala scenographer Filippo Peroni participated in rooms devoted to different historical styles. Poldi Pezzoli collected Renaissance painting beside arms, decorative arts and furniture before his death in 1879; the museum opened in 1881. August 1943 bombing devastated much of the palace, and Fernanda Wittgens and Ferdinando Reggiori contributed to the postwar recovery preceding its 1951 reopening. Conclude at Teatro alla Scala, commissioned under Maria Theresa of Austria after fire destroyed the Teatro Regio Ducale in February 1776. Giuseppe Piermarini designed the replacement on the site of Santa Maria alla Scala, and Antonio Salieri's L'Europa riconosciuta inaugurated it on August 3, 1778. Rossini's arrival in 1812 strengthened La Scala's position in Italian opera; Giuseppe Verdi followed with Oberto in 1839 and Nabucco in 1842. Bombing struck the theatre in August 1943, and Arturo Toscanini conducted its reopening concert on May 11, 1946. The progression moves from Manzoni's literary household through Poldi Pezzoli's collector-driven transformation of a private palace into a public museum and Piermarini's opera house, building a compact portrait of the cultural forces surrounding Dixon's restaurant.
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