El Brellin — Restaurant in Milan

Have a rather horrible experience to share. It was the worst experience any owner/restaurant can provide to any of its customers. We are still in shock. As a background, we live in Navigli. My husband is Italian. Nov 1 his birthday (today). We were supposed to go there with my in-laws and kid for lunch. We called them yesterday to make reservation. For breakfast we were around navigli for our brioche and while heading home, we thought of taking a look at this restaurant where we hadn’t been before. We saw the menu outside and just happened to check with the waitress there if we can sit outside when we come for lunch. She was kind and said shouldn’t be a problem and went to confirm with the owner inside and came back and said it wasn’t possible. We were able to hear the owner shouting at the waitress when she had gone to enquire inside. When she informed us t wasn’t possible, we were slightly disappointed and were heading out and suddenly the owner came out, shouting curse words and banged the door on us, almost like he was chasing us away. We had our kid who saw all this. They surely didn’t know to behave in front of families. For no apparent reason we happened to witness a very angry man, very unkind! Which restaurant does like this? We were there just to enquire! . What gives them this right to be so rude? Almost abrasive? We surely won’t be going for the lunch despite making reservations and plan. It was made amply clear to us that we weren’t welcome. All thanks to the extreme bad behaviror of the owner. It is was us today, it could be you tomorrow. Bad behaviour leads to bad service and am very sure many of the customers would have experienced rudeness and bad service. You might have a pretty place and a fancy menu but if you can’t treat people with respect, then you are missing what truly matters in...

Looks better than it actually is.

Place: It is located in the navigli neighborhood. It is decorated on a traditional Italian style with a beautiful dinning room. This place requires reservation as is usually fully booked.

Service : we were welcomed on our reservation and taken to the second floor where they have a big number of waiters to make sure everyone is attended. The service wasn't however as friendly as expected and we lacked a bit of recommendations. For the staff in place it wasn't also fast. Rushed service and not very friendly in general.

Food: We were welcomed with bread. We had eel tempura, pork cheeks, and grilled octopus for starters. Pork was very juicy, delicious. Octopus tender but was bit unsalted. Eel came tempured to perfection with an outstanding Ali oli sauce, it was delicious. The starters are really tiny compared to the mains,it is in unbalanced.

Mains were Osobucco with risotto, squid rice and pork. The pork was dry although tasty. Osobucco was not so tender but with a proper Al dente Saffron risotto. The squid rice with green peas was just delicious, loved it.

Desserts were tiramisu and lava cake. Tiramisu was very foamy but too sweet. The lava cake was very well prepared and got our attention.

The food was overall good, but the service was not. A lot of improvement to...

Charmin establishment for ossobucco e risotto alla Milanese Every time I go to Milan I try to go to the charming El Brellin for their ossobucco e risotto alla Milanese. The ossobucco & risotto have always been very good and I can't resist the ambiance both in the locale and outside on the Naviglio. The restaurant is located on the Naviglio Grande and is just adorable. (Brings back a lot of good memories and good times....) I've also never had any issues with the service.

I recommended El Brellin to a former colleague and his girlfriend from New Jersey and they raved about it upon their return.

I've read some of the reviews from other customers and just want to add a word to the wise: maybe try to order local "Milanese" dishes and never "expect" top notch customer service anywhere in Italy. (It's not the norm.) Take it from me, I've been going to Italy, every year, for the last 30 years. And, yes, most restaurants in Italy have ridiculous cover charges per person and they are not cheap especially in large cities. (If you want top notch customer service, try coming to the States; maybe New York to some of the better restaurants. )

As for me, I hope to be able to return to El Brellin in the next year or so and I will finally try some of the...