Milan on a Plate | Pellico 3

Deconstructing the Milanese Taste Profile

At Pellico 3 in Milan, Chef Guido Paternollo demonstrates how to anchor a modern tasting menu in regional culinary heritage without falling into clichés. His "La Mia Città" menu reinterprets classic Milanese flavour profiles through a contemporary lens. For chefs looking to translate local food culture onto a fine-dining plate, Paternollo’s work offers a blueprint for balance. Rather than discarding traditional pairings, he retains the core identity of Milanese cooking—namely the rich, savoury interplay of saffron, bone marrow, and bright gremolata—but shifts the textures and structural elements.

Reimagining Classics with Modern Technique

The centrepiece of this approach is Paternollo's Milanese-style lobster. Traditional Milanese ossobuco relies heavily on rich, slow-braised veal marrow and saffron risotto, accented with a fresh zesty gremolata to cut the fat. Paternollo swaps the heavy meat protein for lobster, a move that demands precise technique to prevent the delicate seafood from being overwhelmed by the rich bone marrow and intense saffron.

Chefs can learn how to balance these contrasting elements by using marrow as a luxurious fat element to coat the lobster, while leveraging the high acid and aromatic punch of a refined gremolata to maintain clarity on the palate. The visual presentation is similarly transformed. Instead of the rustic plate of a traditional trattoria, the dish relies on clean, architectural plating that mirrors Milan’s design-forward reputation. Saffron provides a vibrant yellow base, while the green of the gremolata is applied with restraint to ensure each component remains distinct rather than muddling together on the plate.

Conceptualising Sense of Place

Ultimately, this menu teaches kitchen leaders how to build a narrative around geography. Paternollo does not simply cook Italian food; he cooks Milanese food, drawing on specific sensory memories, urban colours, and local aromas. To replicate this success in your own kitchen, the focus must be on identifying the iconic flavour markers of your specific city or region, stripping them down to their core chemical and taste relationships, and rebuilding them using clean, modern techniques that respect the original ingredients.