Located on the roof top of La Ribascente Milano shopping complex, Maio Restaurant is going to be the dinner venue on our last night in Milan. I have to admit, I didn't know a lot about Maio except the fact that it has an eye catching view of the Milan Cathedral. I was quite certain mom and little guy would love the view there. And since we're staying in the area, I thought let's give it a try.
Like it's been advertised, the restaurant has a gorgeous view of the cathedral from up top and it got even better right before sunset when light began to shred on the facade of the beautiful church (turning gold). What I didn't know was that, there're a lot of people smoking in the rooftop area making the air a little hard to breathe at times.
All three of us wanted something light tonight so we didn't go starter-main-dessert like we normally do. Just 2 first and 2 second courses to share among us while my little nugget chips in from time to time.
Milanese style saffron risotto, raw shrimp from Mazara and bitter Campari (18 euro) - I saw this on a couple of their promotion materials before so I was guessing that it's a signature dish here. The saffron risotto was definitely not bad. I like the texture and flavors there but the thin sliced raw shrimp was pretty depressing (both mom and I are shrimp lovers!).
Spaghetti with lobster sauce, pistachio and mint leaves (19 euro) - I like the presentation but the lobster sauce didn't hold up well enough and the result was a fairly dry spaghetti sorely missing a soul. The lobster ragout was a bit of pleasant surprise as it was not mentioned in the menu but this dish clearly didn't work for me.
Milanese style breaded veal bites, cream of peas and Grana Padano cheese (24 euro) - I had a similarly designed dish at Skye, another rooftop restaurant back in Hong Kong with green peas cream but instead of crispy egg yolk and ham, here they had breaded pieces of veal. A modern twist to an old Milanese dish, I thought it was pretty decent with the flavors from the Grana Padano cheese and green peas leading the way.
Bellini peach and Catalana marinated lobster (29 euro) - Dinner ended on a sour note with an absolutely horrible lobster salad. i thought marinating lobster meat with Bellini peach wasn't a bad idea but it was a shame that the execution didn't go as well as we thought.
After that horrible showing from the salad, we all lost our confidence in this kitchen so we decided not to have dessert tonight (as a way to show our displeasure, sort of). If it's any consolation, I thought the mignardises were the best thing that happened to us all night.
The service team with the exception of the two hostesses was just awful tonight. Our server (who took our order but didn't come back until we asked for the bill) was particularly rude and he showed absolutely no interest in answering my questions about the menu. That really played a big role in ruining an otherwise relaxing night out with my family. (Of course, there were other things bothering me: smells of bad cigarettes and my camera breaking down on just the second day of our trip).
Food Rating: 4/10
Price: €€€
Address: 7/F La Rinascente Milano, Piazza Duomo, 20121 Milan, Italy
Tel: +39 02 885-2455
Website: www.maiorestaurant.com
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