Joia is a vegetarian restaurant founded in Milan as a place of transformation. In a quiet corner of the city, removed from the noise yet drawing on its energy, it welcomes those seeking a gastronomic experience that nourishes the body while stimulating the mind. Here, fine dining meets an ethical and spiritual vision, resulting in dishes that express respect for all living beings. Organic ingredients, artisanal craft, research into international techniques and a connection to local traditions come together in a coherent, conscious offering. Food becomes an act of care and connection—not only between those cooking and those at the table, but also with nature, culture and oneself. Some connections are immediate; others reveal themselves slowly. All leave a mark.
Convinced that cuisine could be approached not only as a source of pleasure but also as a form of care for the individual, Pietro Leemann and a group of like-minded professionals founded Joia, Fine Vegetarian Cuisine in 1989. Rooted in the principles of Italian and French haute cuisine and enriched by Asian techniques and ingredients, the restaurant’s innovative and forward-thinking approach was recognised with a Michelin star in 1996.
After years of continued success, Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini joined the team in 2012, working alongside Leemann to imagine new horizons. In 2014, Joia Academy was created to promote the principles of vegetarianism, offer technical tools for nutritional independence and raise awareness of the extraordinary impact of our dietary choices. Joia also extended its support to consultancy for restaurants and businesses, enabling prestigious partners to benefit from the chefs’ expertise.
An innate focus on selected organic ingredients, seasonality as a guarantee of flavour and support for local producers across Milan and Lombardy placed Joia among the first restaurants to receive the Michelin Green Star for Sustainability in 2020. New intentions and renewed motivations marked the beginning of 2024: Minghini and Ricci became owners and managers of Joia, while Leemann embarked on a new spiritual project in the ecovillage of Bordei in Switzerland.
Working with vegetarian cuisine means developing the most expressive form of what the plant world has to offer. This begins with the careful selection of quality ingredients and the mastery required to transform and contextualise them.
We choose organic produce to avoid impacting both the external and internal environment, and for reasons of taste and integrity. Our tasting menus follow the rhythms of the seasons, appearing in two variations for summer and winter and one for spring and autumn. Our food is elevated and purified through our presence and intent, designed to nourish at every level of the self.
We understand philosophy as the innate human impulse toward knowledge and awareness—that emotional yearning that explores the meaning and causes of the world, both visible and invisible. This exploration and its discoveries lead to concrete choices, guiding our daily actions. Drawing from the world of ideas, concepts take form and enter the material realm.
Following this principle, we first conceive our dishes and then we cook them, moving through a process of aesthetic research and the ethical plane.
Animal-derived ingredients such as eggs, meat and fish inevitably involve an act of violence and carry the energetic weight of that act. We choose to work with ingredients free from such sacrifice, while paying close attention to how they are grown and obtained to ensure our approach remains sustainable.
Driven by the desire to live in harmony with our home planet and the other creatures that inhabit it, we give full expression to our culinary art so that it may bring true pleasure to those who sit at our table.
A graduate of the hospitality school in Spoleto, he trained with Antonio Guida, Michelino Gioia and Stefano di Salvo at Il Pellicano, where he began working in 2001. Drawn to cultural and religious diversity, he enrolled at the University of Siena and graduated in 2010 in ethno-anthropological studies with a thesis on the philosophical and identity principles of modern macrobiotics.
He joined Joia in 2012, where he discovered the possibility of uniting haute cuisine and vegetarian culture. In 2014, he became Executive Chef and, together with Pietro Leemann and Raffaele Minghini, founded the Joia Academy. His approach to cooking goes beyond technique: it is sustained by spiritual research, literature and constant experimentation.
Today he practises yoga with Gaia Bergamaschi and is enrolled in the master’s programme in Traditional Indian Sciences at the Institute of Indo-Vedic Studies, part of the Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta in Ponsacco. His vision continues to evolve through body, thought and spirituality, in an ongoing dialogue between the culinary act and his own awareness.
Trained initially as an industrial mechanical technician, he discovered a love for Italian literature and existential inquiry during the same years. After his technical-scientific education, he enrolled at the University of Bologna, graduating in Ethical and Aesthetic Philosophy under the guidance of the late Professor Maurizio Malaguti. He brought his interest in the human dimension into the kitchen and began working in osterias in Romagna in 2011.
He arrived at Joia in 2012, where meeting Pietro Leemann revealed a new perspective on food, leading him to embrace vegetarianism as a spontaneous and necessary choice. In 2016, he moved to London as Head Chef to oversee the opening of Farmacy, a plant-based restaurant, where he developed organisational and managerial skills.
In 2018, he returned to Milan, consolidating his trajectory and driving the evolution of Joia’s “classic” cuisine. In 2024, he assumed leadership and ownership of the restaurant alongside Sauro Ricci. His work blends philosophical sensitivity, technical rigour and an inclusive vision, strengthening Joia’s identity within a contemporary and conscious framework.
The Founder: Pietro Leemann
A prominent figure on the Italian gastronomic scene since the 1990s, Leemann owes his influence to prestigious technical training, primarily with masters such as Gualtiero Marchesi and Fredy Girardet, and to a cultural and spiritual inclination nurtured over years of travel in Asia and deepened through his connection with the Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta. His intuition regarding the potential of vegetarian cuisine and the skill with which he elevated it to gourmet level have made him an international benchmark in both gastronomy and philosophical thought. A true master, he has trained dozens of professionals through rigour and dialogue over his thirty-four years leading the Joia project. After twelve years working closely with Sauro and Raffaele—to whom he entrusted the kitchen as early as 2014—and intense collaboration on creativity and menu development, he handed ownership of Joia to them in early 2024 to begin a new community-based project in Terra Vecchia Bordei, in the Centovalli Alps. Today he is president of the Ecovillaggio Santuario foundation and oversees its many hospitality and group activities.
Location
Clean lines, natural materials and delicate lighting designed by Davide Groppi. The atmosphere is quiet and intimate, conceived to encourage listening, pleasure and a sense of hospitality. The carefully curated musical backdrop focuses on vibration, accompanying the timing and rhythm of the dining experience. Every detail has been considered to convey a sense of balance: a solemn space where hospitality meets intimacy, in harmony with the world outside.
Press
At Joia, Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini inherit Pietro Leemann’s vision and make it their own through a vegetarian cuisine conceived as a mindful act. They offer a credible alternative to the “traditional model”: seasonal, well-balanced dishes built around vegetables, grains, legumes, and seeds, designed to nourish the body without sacrificing flavor or quality.
On Sunday, 05.10.25, the Milan canteen of Opera San Francesco per i Poveri (OSF) opened its doors for the 14th edition of Grandi Cuochi all’Opera, a charity lunch where top Italian chefs and pastry chefs — including Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini (Joia, Milan) — took over the kitchen for a day. All proceeds were donated to OSF’s daily services, including canteens, clinics, showers, wardrobes, and reception.
The 2025 Identità Naturali Award at Identità Milano was given to Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini of Joia. The recognition honors their dedication to carrying forward — with renewed energy — the tradition of signature vegetarian cuisine initiated by Pietro Leemann, showing that even with plant-based ingredients it is possible to create dishes of great value and quality.
“Still be amazed, without losing faith in humanity” — this was the message of hope from Fra’ Marcello, president of Opera San Francesco per i Poveri (OSF), during the event organized with Identità Golose. On Sunday, 05.10.25, OSF’s historic canteen in Milan hosted the 14th edition of Grandi Cuochi all’Opera: a top-tier brigade — including Joia’s chefs Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini — transformed the canteen into a fine-dining experience. All proceeds were donated to OSF’s daily services.
At the Festival di Stelle in Livigno, Joia’s chef Sauro Ricci and chef Andrea Fugnanesi met for a showcooking celebrating “High Natural Cuisine”: Ricci with his plant-based gazpacho, Fugnanesi with the “Forest Spaghettone.” In the joint interview, they share their views on vegetarian/vegan cuisine, sustainability, connection with nature, and life philosophy, highlighting how, for both, food is not only nourishment but a conscious lifestyle.
Joia’s chef Sauro Ricci presents the “Gazpacho Sincronicità”: a summer, vegetarian version that is fresh and vibrant in color, blending strawberries, tomato, avocado, corn, and cashews. The bold yet harmonious combination reflects the restaurant’s philosophy, offering a creative culinary experience that can also be enjoyed at home.
Joia opens a new chapter under chefs Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini, who carry forward Pietro Leemann’s legacy with a refreshed vision. Their plant-based cuisine stands out for creativity, awareness, and a deep bond with nature: every dish is conceived as a sensory and visual story, evocative of time and seasonality. Joia offers ever-evolving seasonal menus, tasting journeys, thoughtful pairings (including alcohol-free), and a kitchen team focused on quality and ethical sourcing. The restaurant presents itself not only as a place of flavor, but as a space for reflection on food—where research, play, and environmental consciousness meet.
The video portrays Joia as a leading vegetarian restaurant in Milan, tracing its story and showcasing several of its culinary creations to highlight the creative, sustainable approach that defines its cuisine.
At Joia, Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini carry on Pietro Leemann’s legacy with a cuisine that blends restraint, awareness, and a contemporary vision of the plant-based world. Through dishes that reflect the chefs’ own personalities and a steadily sharpening identity, the restaurant affirms a gastronomic vision capable of evolving without losing depth, playing with essentiality, technique, and carefully chosen ingredients.
At the Identità Milano 2025 congress, within the “Identità Vegetali” section, the Joia team — represented by chefs Raffaele Minghini and Sauro Ricci — led a masterclass presenting their own “gastronomic manifesto”: a vegetarian cuisine that goes beyond simple nourishment, becoming sustenance for the spirit and a reflection on the balance between body, health, and awareness.
At Joia, chefs Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini carry forward the founder’s legacy, shaping a vegetarian cuisine that blends elegance, awareness, and sustainability. Their dishes follow the rhythm of the land, built on seasonal and organic ingredients that turn each plate into both a sensory and spiritual experience. Joia is more than a restaurant: it’s a place where food becomes a bridge between matter, nature, and consciousness.
For the chefs at Joia, a plant-based diet can be the most sustainable choice — but “vegan” isn’t a sufficient definition on its own. Sustainability, for them, means respecting ingredients, the land, and life itself: vegetables and legumes aren’t commodities but living elements to be handled with care. For a plant-based approach to truly matter, it must rely on honest, seasonal, and consciously sourced ingredients.
At Joia, Sauro Ricci and Raffaele Minghini take up Pietro Leemann’s legacy and carry forward a vegetarian cuisine that blends ethics, creativity, and discipline. The two chefs — one with a background in anthropology and the other in philosophy — approach each dish as an intentional act, paying close attention to ingredients, aesthetics, and meaning. The restaurant remains a workshop of both cooking and life, where team members and the kitchen brigade grow together, and every gesture is designed to achieve a harmonious and authentic result.
