La Gioia San Marco — Restaurant in Milan

Never again.

It is an italian cuisine place that position themselves as a “fine dining” with generous ratings on social media and “the best pasta in the whole Italy”. Of course we had to try it.

We made a reservation 2 weeks in advance for a Friday evening. Immediately after the reservation we were kindly informed that there is a penalty fee for not showing. Which is usual for fine dining places, no problem.

When we came to the restaurant, it was full to its capacity, both indoors and in the terrace. Tables between the guests located in just a few centimetres from each other. Waiters bumped at me at least three times before I even got my menu to open. Everything already at that time raised a thought in us whether it is truly a high kitchen or a poor eatery.

Our waiter kindly informed us that there is a policy to order at least 2 dishes per person, which “is written with a small print at the bottom of the menu. No, the dessert doesn’t count”. It was our second red flag, and we didn’t even taste the food yet. Why on earth would a “fine dining” restaurant need to state such a policy on the first place?

Moreover, the waiter kept explaining to us what a burrata cheese is and that a tartare is a raw meat, as if anyone asked. Felt very disrespectful.

So, about the food itself. The tartare was awfully cut, big lumps of meat, almost no seasoning. They politely placed a salt and pepper on our table prior serving the dish. Very fine. I’m only wondering why wouldn’t they give us a kitchen knife to finish the cutting.

The cherry on top - pasta. Have you ever tasted a truffle? It has a unique taste, which cannot be mixed with anything else. And it definitely differs from those coconut-tasting slices that were topped on my pasta. I have lots of questions. What’s worse, my partner got a part of mussel’s shell in his pasta, which wounded his gum. A dining with a twist, let’s call it that.

Classic Pavlova dessert served with an ice cream ball on top. Ice cream, which I’m pretty sure was from the cheapest ice cream pack from the nearest supermarket.

Overall, this was truly a worst dining experience we’ve ever had. Towards the end of the dinner we decided to perceive it as a cringe-place just to not spoil our mood completely. To the credit of the place, they made my partner’s pasta and a dessert complimentary as an apology for the incident. Oh, and they gave him a handful...

So, basically I fell in the TikTok/Social Media trap. Bear with me: before going to Milan, of course I did some research to see where to eat, especially for my birthday. And this location appeared several times made a reservation a few weeks ahead, with NO posibility to choose inside seating, but wrote a message saying it is my birthday and it would be nice to stay inside after confirming the reservation for 4-5 times the expectations went waaaay higher we arrived on time and asked if there is any chance to stay inside and I was told NO even before finishing my sentence we were fitted outside inside the sidewalk built terrace at the table right next to the entrance. Very cramped, barely had space to stay comfortable at the table, and tilted in an angle since this is a sidewalk and not perfectly straight. Also, there was a very big but sad artificial plant next to us the heater above the table was so intense that I had to put my phones in the pocket since they were getting very HOT, as well for my head Also, since we are in the era of social media we would have liked to take some photos/videos of the food, but everything turned purple on camera because of the red heater above service was good, the waiter was kind THE FOOD: appetizers were Vitello tonato and a langoustine carpaccio with avocado (around 50 euros together) - the tartar had a VERY think layer of the seafood and my vittelo resembled the one you can buy at any supermarket sliced. And I had some vittelo tonato in my life so trust me, I know how it should be for the main courses we had: Milanese risotto (which was good, nothing to complain) and Tajarin al tartuffo - which was very dry, small portion. Asked for parmesan which was very weird texture, therefore I asked if it was parmesan at all. The answer was that they grate it there. Makes no sense since I grate my own also, and it looks/tastes good. This was "clumpy". The wine was also good. IN CONCLUSION: this is WAY overrated. For a table for 2 which was around 170 euros with no desert and the setup we dined, I can clasify it as a tourist trap. I still don't get who is sitting inside, since it's...

We Had very high expectations and were extremely disappointed.

First of all, when you step in the restaurant, you get a sense straight away that the atmosphere is snobby, and a sense of entitlement pertrudes.

Our waiter was nice but the rest barely smiled and it felt uptight.

Nice touch to bring some lovely breads and some olives, sadly there were only 5 of them (didn’t have time to take a photo!).

We love LA NOSTRA CACIO E PEPE and we had not had any since our trip last year in Italy and had high hopes that it would be the place to have some. You have to order for a minimum of 2 people. It was so disappointing, the taste was very light and felt watered down so it felt like the pasta didn’t spent enough time in the cheese and therefore you don’t get the pastas covered by the yummy sauce. It tastes like almost regular pasta, far from a good caccio e Peppe, very average, huge disappointment.

As I had my first veal Milanese at Valentino legend today and loved it, I decided to order it tonight.

COSTOLETTA MILANO : Well, at la GIOIA you get an extremely thin piece of veal covered by a generous amount of breadcrumbs. It tasted oily, fatty as the fat from the veal was included. I didn’t finished it and sent at least 1/3 back.

Then we had LA TAGLIATA Cut of Beef of Red Lombard Cow and Tarragon which was very good, very tender and had a very nice saffron sauce. But I was a bit disappointed that it had no sides at all (no salad or anything just the beef, same for the veal cutlet).

I wanted to get something refreshing with my veal. Please note that la GIOIA has no serving of green salad of any kind.

Also, no privacy at all as towards the end of our meal, a couple was placed right besides us on the same table. Lastly, be aware that the A/C was very weak and we felt it was too hot.

To conclude, the food is not worth the hype at all. Maybe if you like to be in a trendy place and don’t mind the quality of the food, go but for food lovers go somewhere else, Valentino...