Autem* – Milan's market table with no printed menu

Down a quiet residential street behind Porta Romana, Autem* works without a printed menu at all: chef Luca Natalini and his brigade write the day's dishes by hand, built from whatever arrives from the market that morning. The kitchen creates its plates according to the market's daily offer rather than from a fixed repertoire. Barely two years after opening, Natalini had already secured a firm position in a Milan where independent restaurant projects rarely find it easy, and the address remains one the city watches closely. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide. Guests walk in past the pass before being seated at one of fourteen tables, spread across two rooms and a small private room, in a space Natalini designed himself, down to the smallest detail, as an extension of his own vision from the walls to the plate.

01The room and the setting

Guests cross the threshold directly into the open kitchen, where cooks prepare each course within sight of the first dining room, with no wall or counter between stove and table. Two more spaces follow: a quieter second room lined with ancient aged mirrors, which the restaurant calls the Mirror Hall, and beyond it a private room seating up to ten. Between them there are fourteen tables in all, a mix of round and square shapes, set on chairs designed by Drigani.

Three large windows light the two dining rooms, and a cellar built into the basement was already planned when the restaurant opened. The lighting was conceived as it would be for an art gallery, and the walls carry works by the artist Alessandra Maio, chosen together with the Bi Box gallery in Biella. It is a detail that matters to Natalini, grandson of the painter Carlo Maria Mariani, for whom cooking is itself a first form of art.

02The chef

Natalini was born in Pescia, in the province of Pistoia, in 1989, and left for Paris at fourteen to learn French technique, with further spells in Prague, Vienna and Russia. He graduated from Alma, the international school of Italian cuisine at Colorno near Parma, in 2012, and in 2016 was named Young Chef for S.Pellegrino in Russia. Television found him too, through Top Chef and La Prova del Cuoco, alongside his training at Al Pont de Ferr and his rise to recognition in Langhirano.

Insider tip

Closed Tuesdays; lunch only Friday–Sunday. Bookings taken only via the restaurant's own site.

That first Autem had stood on the roof of the Galloni prosciutto factory in Langhirano, near Parma, before it closed. In 2020 Natalini moved to Milan as executive chef of the historic Al Pont de Ferr, working alongside owner Maida Mercuri. He left in 2021 to open a project entirely his own, bringing the Autem name back to life in the city he called the city of opportunity. The new Autem opened its doors on 5 May 2023.

03The cooking

There is no fixed tasting menu to fall back on: the kitchen rebuilds its sequence day by day around what the market offers, and sustainability sits at the centre of that decision. Meat is used whole, cut by cut, including the so-called fifth quarter, in rotation with what is available, so as to avoid waste.

Even the butter served with bread changes with the season, made from cow's, goat's, sheep's, buffalo's or donkey's milk depending on what is to hand. Vegetables and fruit come from small, short-chain producers and from organic or permaculture growing, and fish is chosen only from short supply chains and caught by line, a method meant to spare the balance of marine stocks.

04What to order

Expect some of the chef's signature dishes to reappear across the seasons: Pasta in Bianco, a snail dish called 'As if it were a Bourguignonne,' the more daring 'Horse and Oyster,' and a smoked eel salad. Pasta in Bianco carries particular weight here — it is the dish that first made Natalini's name, and at Autem it can still be added to the Carta Bianca tasting menu for a small supplement.

The cheese course goes further than most, drawn from some twenty dairies across Italy and France and chosen personally by the chef. On the tasting side, the kitchen offers a four-course market menu, a six-course run through Natalini's historic dishes, and three shorter three-course menus built around meat, fish or vegetables; everything on the à la carte list runs individually between 49 and 79 euros.

05Wine and drinks

Pairings run alongside either tasting menu: four glasses for 70 euros a head, or six for 90, both quoted without food. Wine, like every course, is billed apart from the set price of the menus themselves, so the final bill reflects exactly what was poured.

06When to go and booking

Autem opens only for dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 18:00 to 22:30, and adds lunch from midday to 14:30 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; it closes entirely on Tuesdays. Lunch on those three days can also mean Convivium, a shared, family-style menu built around a meat course, a fish course, a salad, something fried, an egg dish, vegetables and seasonal fruit, served for 50 euros a head with water, coffee and cover included. Bookings are not taken by phone or email but exclusively through the restaurant's own online booking page.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.