Dongiò — Restaurant in Milan

We celebrated our anniversary at this Michelin-recommended restaurant with my partner, and surprisingly, we stumbled upon some incredibly kind flavors. I never thought Italy could offer food that wasn't overly salty, and it was also incredibly affordable at just 20 euros per person. We ordered a chicken dish flavored with eggplant—it was fantastic. We also casually picked a tomato maccheroni and garlic shrimp spaghetti. The eggplant was truly delicious, and the tomato ragu and garlic oil felt exactly like something my grandma from Shanxi, China, would make! It reminded me of the scene in Ratatouille where the food critic is transported back to his mother's cooking, dropping his pen in awe. I imagine the Michelin critic who recommended this place must have arrived with a very jaded palate, a mouth that had been overly pampered too many times and hadn't truly finished a meal in ages. Yet, for some reason, here they devoured everything, scraping their plate clean, just like we did. If I had to make one complaint, it's that the complimentary bread crust wasn't as crispy as the one at Canaletto Bistrot by the canal. However, the food there eventually becomes overwhelmingly salty and tiring. Dongio's food, on the other hand, felt like it was defining what food should be: incredibly grounded, with very restrained seasonings. It made me feel...

Great food, great vibe!

The service was, well, quick, but way too quick. They gave the primi after a short time, which was nice, and it tasted good. Then the secundi also fast, a little too fast, we had only been there for 20 minutes. It tasted even better!

Then they gave us the dessert menu. As I said it had only been 25 minutes. It was a special day for us: the 1 year anniversary of our relationship, so we wanted to have a long nice evening. But after like 2 minutes they asked us what dessert we wanted; we said we hadn’t looked yet. 5 minutes later they asked us again. We ordered a bottle of wine at the start and wanted to finish it first. We said ‘No, not yet, sorry’, which prompted a weird reaction; they took the dessert menu and gave us the bill. Very strange because it was 20:15, whereas we had only arrived at 19:35.

We ignored the bill and finished our wine. We ordered dessert and enjoyed it; nice again.

So concluding: the food was nice but the waiters rushed us. They gave us the bill after 40 minutes even though we are not even quick eaters. The interior, atmosphere and food are nice but the waiters lack a little politeness.

Thanks for the...

First off, the menu shown outside the restaurant is old and not the same as the menu inside. We wanted to try the cotoletta, and it was on the menu outside but not on the new menu they had inside. That's fine, but the food we ordered was not good. The swordfish was inedible - overcooked and tasteless. The manager took one look at it and agreed with us and took it away.

The rest of the meal was similarly poor, the meatballs were fine but lacked flavour, while in contrast the bruschetta had an overpowering flavour. The guinea fowl leg sounded great on the menu, but came out dry - it was clearly old.

All in all we paid €60 (and we only drank water) for an extremely disappointing meal. The deliveroo machine was going off constantly in the corner which is probably why the food was also churned out at record pace at the expense of quality.

Reply to the owner: The menu outside was different. The person I was with speaks fluent Italian. There was no mistakes like you are suggesting. And if the cod should be "well cooked", why did you take it away and agree with us that it was overdone and inedible? Strange and...