Illustration by Fig & Ginger, drawn from the review. The venue's own photo is on its way.
Two-star hotel restaurant in Brera / Quadrilatero (near La Scala), Milan
Seta by Antonio Guida
Lobster in the Courtyard
Antonio Guida was born in Tricase, down in the heel of Italy, and started at the bottom of hotel kitchens doing whatever he was told. He cooked his way through Zurich, Paris, Florence and the Amalfi coast, won two Michelin stars at Il Pellicano on the Argentario, and then came north when the Mandarin Oriental opened on Via Andegari in 2015. Ten years on the restaurant carries his name, and it still holds two stars in the 2026 guide.
Seta sits in the hotel's second courtyard behind tall glass windows, a few streets from La Scala. The cooking is southern at heart and French in its manners. For the tenth anniversary Guida pulled his greatest hits back onto the table: oysters with potatoes, friggitelli peppers, caviar and Champagne sauce; roasted lobster with bagna cauda, cuttlefish and vanilla bisque, a dish he keeps reworking because he cannot leave it alone; a risotto with raspberries and herb cream that sounds like a dare. Precise without being fussy. Technical without going cold.
I tend to distrust dining rooms with a concierge desk between them and the street. Too much carpet, not enough cooks. Seta is the exception, a hotel dining room that Milan books for itself and not only for the guests upstairs. Lunch runs Tuesday to Saturday as well as dinner. Ask what is on the menu that week, then trust the kitchen.
- Order this
- The tasting menu, Roasted lobster with bagna cauda, when it is on, Oysters with potatoes, friggitelli and caviar, when it is on
- The damage
- $$$$
- Go
- Tuesday to Saturday, lunch 12.30 to 14.30 or dinner 19.30 to 22.30; closed Sunday and Monday
- Find it
- Mandarin Oriental, Via Andegari 9, 20121 Milano
- Website
- mandarinoriental.com