The Restaurant
28 Posti opened in 2014 on Via Corsico, a narrow side-street that opens directly onto the Naviglio Pavese canal in the Navigli district south of central Milan. The restaurant was the project of the late chef Marco Ambrosino, who built it into a Navigli landmark with avant-garde Mediterranean cooking and a Slow Food-aligned producer network from his native Procida. When Ambrosino departed in 2022, chef Franco Salvatore took over the kitchen and has spent three seasons refining rather than rewriting the original vision. Today 28 Posti is one of the most consistently booked tables in Milan's casual-fine-dining tier.
The room delivers exactly what the name promises - twenty-eight seats around a single open kitchen visible from every table, with a sliver of canal-side terrace that opens to the Naviglio Pavese from May through October. The design is minimalist Milanese - reclaimed-wood tables built by the original Cooperativa carpentry workshop, exposed concrete, hand-blown light fixtures - and the space feels closer to a Brera design-studio dinner party than a conventional restaurant. The acoustics are intimate, the lighting is candlelit by 21:00, and the open kitchen creates the soundtrack of the evening.
Chef Salvatore cooks two tasting menus (five or seven courses) alongside a short a la carte that rotates weekly. The Mediterranean root runs deep - hand-rolled paccheri with Sicilian red prawns and aged provolone, a Piedmontese rabbit cooked in its own juices over polenta, a signature cuttlefish carbonara that has stayed on the menu through every chef transition. The wine list is roughly two hundred references with serious depth in Sicilian natural producers and Etna whites, and the bar program runs proper Negroni and Boulevardier service alongside the canal-side aperitivo crowd. The value proposition for the level of cooking is rare in Milan.
Why This Is Milan’s First Date Pick
For a Milan first date that wants serious intent without the formal-tablecloth nerves, 28 Posti is the right answer. The small-room scale (twenty-eight seats means the entire restaurant feels like a private dinner party), the candlelight, the canal-side aperitivo on the terrace before the table, the open kitchen as the room's natural conversation prompt - every detail of the evening builds toward intimacy without performing. For a solo trip to Milan it is equally good - the seats at the kitchen pass are the best in the house and the chef will talk you through the menu in Italian or English. For a small birthday of six or eight, book the long communal table along the back wall.
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