Argentine chef Mar tín Milesi is the creator of the unique dining experience UNA, a single table restaurant at selected venues around London, serving modern Argentine cuisine. With two decades experience in the hospitality industry, Milesi was head chef of Bastián in the Las Cañitas district of Buenos Aires at just 23 years old and ran his own restaurant, Raíz, in the city. He has worked in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and across Europe.

UNA serves just 12 people per service and started within the Victorian gothic splendour of Sir George Gilbert Scott’s recently renovated St Pancras station in central London. The exposed brick of the clock tower’s vaulted ceiling stretches high above the simply set single table around which 12 guests, who may or may not know each other, gather on designer leather and chrome chairs to embark on a culinary journey though Latin America, taking in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Mexico (among other countries) accompanied by fine wines from Argentina.

Milesi has travelled throughout Europe to visit the kitchens of such cutting-edge restaurants as Restaurante Martín Berasategui and El Celler de Can Roca in Spain and Viajante in London to seek inspiration for his unique and disruptive project. He combines authentic Latin American ingredients, classic recipes from Argentina and innovative techniques to create his distinctive take on his native culinary culture. In order to develop the relationship between diners, chefs and food, Milesi personally introduces the dozen diners to each course which might include Argentine grass-fed beef served with fainá, a criolla sauce with fennel and orange confit, and chestnut cream.

The Evening Standard said that ‘Milesi is a master of creating delicate, pretty Argentine dishes like cured trout with micro-foliage and fake potato, made from little bits of rye bread, mushrooms, baby corn and dried olives, assembled so the rye looks like soil and the mushrooms and corn appear to sprout from it’.

Milesi’s career has also spanned academia, as he was a professor specialising in the History of Argentine Food at the Argentine Institute of Gastronomy, partner of L’Ecole LeNotre of Paris and the Argentine Business University. He spoke at the Argentine Embassy in London to Argentine restaurant owners in London on the influence of Great Britain on the commerce of Argentine meat. Milesi is also a professional illustrator.