The IYO Group has operated on Via Piero della Francesca in Milan's Chinatown-adjacent Sarpi district long enough to have earned a place in the city's institutional memory. The original IYO restaurant collected a Michelin star in 2015 — becoming the first Japanese restaurant in Italy to do so — and the group has since expanded into a cluster of adjacent spaces: IYO Kaiseki for the formal multi-course kaiseki experience, and Iyo Omakase for the counter, where the format strips everything down to the essential transaction between chef and diner at seven seats.
The omakase counter represents a specific philosophy about what eating alone, or eating in pairs, should mean. There are no tables. There are no menus to navigate. There is a counter, a sushi master, and a sequence of courses that will move through the cuisine of Japan's Edo period with the discipline of a tradition that has spent three centuries refining its relationship to fish, rice, and the temperature at which each should be served. Chef Masashi Suzuki presides over this format with the composure of a craftsman who has made his peace with precision.
What makes Iyo Omakase singular in the Italian context is the sourcing. Suzuki draws from Italian fish markets with the same rigour that a Tokyo itamae would apply to Tsukiji: the tuna belly comes from Sicily, the sea urchin from the waters off Gallipoli in Puglia, the clams and molluscs from the Adriatic with the same seasonal logic that governs Japanese kaiseki. The Italian peninsula is, for a chef who thinks about fish the way Suzuki does, an extraordinary larder — one that Italy's own restaurant industry has not fully exploited, and that a Japanese sensibility can approach with fresh eyes and more exacting standards. The result is sushi that tastes irreducibly Japanese and irreducibly Italian at the same time, which is a thing that shouldn't work and does.
The wine list — curated with the same attention given to saké selections — features Italian whites from the most serious producers of Friuli and Campania. The sake programme stands alone among Italian restaurants for its depth and curation. The counter seats are available for two-hour sittings; the total guest count never exceeds seven. Book weeks in advance. Confirm the booking on the day. Arrive slightly early and allow the evening to move at the pace the counter dictates.