Milan, Italy ARCHITECT Iyo Aalto is the second restaurant of Claudio Liu, the visionary entrepreneur who is behind the first Japanese restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star in Italy. Located on the first floor of the Solaria Tower in Porta Nuova, a district symbol of Milan’s renaissance, it was born to turn food into an extraordinary experience.

“Light comes from below or is aimed at the centre of the table, the stage upon which the act of eating is played out”.

“I liked the idea of a fluid environment, where the eye is free to wander, without seeing what’s on the other side”.

Maurizio Lai is one of Italy’s most interesting contemporary architects and designers. He trained between Venice and Milan, where he lives and works. After a long stint working as a set designer – an experience which taught him an appreciation for craft, intended as the art of making – he founded Lai Studio in 1990. He believes that an architect’s job is more similar to that of a director than to that of an artist. Maurizio Lai’s projects, in fact, like the best films, are about expression rather than form. In his many award-winning restaurant designs, experience comes before consumption, with...

You wanted to convey a different, contemporary idea of Japan. What does that mean? I found myself thinking about how, often, in restaurants inspired by a specific cuisine, there’s an effort to recreate the atmosphere of that certain country. The outcome is necessarily a fake, not just because the original style is moulded to our taste, but because we live in a society that is so contaminated that cultures, tastes and influences mix constantly. This happens in cooking as well as in architecture. With IYO Aalto, I knew I didn’t want to design a set. I asked myself: what is it that we associate...

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