Dry Aged – Milan's steakhouse built around the ageing cabinet

A few steps from the Navigli canals, Dry Aged has built an entire restaurant around the slow chemistry of ageing meat, fish and even vegetables. Two friends, chef Matteo Ferrario and restaurant manager and sommelier Stefano Carenzi, opened the dining room in June 2021, after planning it together during the pandemic months, drawing on years spent side by side at Terrazza Triennale under chef Stefano Cerveni. The result is a restaurant in three distinct moods: a dining room with an open kitchen, a New York-style bar built around a communal table, and a private room wrapped by a glass-walled wine cellar. Dry-ageing cabinets greet guests at the entrance, stacked with cuts from breeds as different as Chianina, Rubia Gallega and Japanese wagyu. It holds the MICHELIN Guide's "Selected" distinction, having entered the 2025 edition, and its spend is classed by the guide as a moderate one for the Milanese table.

01The room and the setting

The three environments are deliberately different registers of the same idea. The main room runs on the open kitchen, so the grilling and plating happen in full view of the tables; the New York Bar leans into a looser, social mood around its shared table; and at the back, a private room is wrapped by a wall of wine, the restaurant's reserve of roughly a hundred labels on display behind glass.

The walls carry work by street artists, part of a deliberate contrast the owners describe as tradition meeting contemporaneity. One past feature noted the paintings of the artist Nocurves hanging through the dining rooms, turning the restaurant into something close to a small gallery between courses.

02The chef and the sommelier

Matteo Ferrario trained under Stefano Baiocco at Villa Feltrinelli and under Ettore Bocchia at Villa Serbelloni, two kitchens holding Michelin stars on Lake Garda and Lake Como, before five years as executive chef at Terrazza Triennale under Stefano Cerveni, the chef behind Due Colombe in Borgonato. As a young cook he presented his own dish, a risotto cooked in an infusion of lime blossom, blueberries and mushrooms, at the Identità Golose congress in Milan.

Insider tip

Dinner-only on Monday; lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday, read on the restaurant's site in October 2026.

Stefano Carenzi runs the floor and the cellar. He started at Joia, the only vegetarian restaurant in Europe to hold a Michelin star, before moving through Hotel Cipriani in Venice, where he first worked a cellar of more than 1,200 labels, and The Goring Hotel in London. Back in Milan he worked at Berton and then at iT Milano, where the restaurant won its first Michelin star within six months of opening under his guidance.

03The cooking

Dry-ageing is not a gimmick here but a working method: cuts rest in temperature- and humidity-controlled cabinets for weeks, concentrating flavour and softening texture, and the same logic of maturation is applied beyond beef, to fish and vegetables. Raw materials come chiefly from small local producers chosen directly by the kitchen.

The menu moves between classic Milanese references and more travelled ideas: Mondeghili, the city's traditional meatballs, sit alongside tartare, steamed bao buns filled with Black Angus carpaccio, and a vitello tonnato built around pork pluma rather than veal. A 36-hour dry-aged beef ragù runs through the fresh tagliatelle, and a Milanese-style breaded sirloin, panko-crumbed, arrives with charred celeriac and cardoncelli mushrooms.

04What to order

To start, the Fassona beef tartare from Macelleria Oberto comes dressed in the classic way with its own condiments and an egg yolk, while the wagyu croquettes are paired with sweet-and-sour daikon and soy. From the kitchen, the Riserva San Massimo carnaroli rice with pumpkin, a cream of sweet cheeses and black truffle is built for two, and the Pata Negra tortellini are finished with hazelnuts and balsamic vinegar of Modena IGP.

From the grill and the dry-ageing room, the restaurant's own fillet selection runs to 200 grams, alongside picanha and a flank steak from the Miguel Vergara selection; by weight, the chops range from Italian Fassona and Chianina IGP to Rubia Gallega, Barrosa DOP from Portugal and Angus from Spain, each cut carrying a minimum weight of around 1.1 to 1.3 kilograms. The tasting route culminates, for those who want it, in the Wagyu Experience, pairing A4 Japanese wagyu from Juku Farm, served raw and in a riso al salto, with a matcha tea panna cotta to close.

05Wine and the tasting menus

The cellar holds around a hundred labels, weighted toward natural and biodynamic bottles, built by Carenzi to favour Italian excellence without ignoring smaller foreign producers. Wine pairings of four glasses are offered at two levels, and the same tasting menu is required for the whole table.

A cover charge of 3 euros applies for bread and table service.

06When to go and the neighbourhood

The restaurant opens for dinner only on Monday, from 19:00 to 22:00, and for lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Sunday, with Friday and Saturday service running later, to 22:30. Via Cesare da Sesto sits in the Sant'Agostino district, a few steps from the Navigli canals, with the Sant'Agostino metro stop around 377 metres from the door, making it an easy walk from the canal-side bars and the old Washing House, the Vicolo dei Lavandai, nearby.

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