What to eat in Milan
Milan eats yellow and rich: saffron risotto, a bone-in veal cutlet fried in butter, ossobuco with lemon-parsley gremolada, and cassoeula, a pork and cabbage stew. It is cold-plain winter cooking that the modern city has half forgotten and a dozen old trattorias still defend.
Milanese cooking runs on butter, rice and pork, all three products of the irrigated Lombard plain. Rice arrived in the fifteenth century with Cistercian land reclamation and became the city's dominant starch; butter and cheese came from the dairy farms south of the city; saffron, which gives the risotto its colour, was a court spice, and in the Milanese dish it remains a piece of visible affluence. The legend says it fell into the rice in 1574, when an apprentice who used saffron to tint cathedral stained glass played a joke at a wedding.
Almost all the historic dishes are slow and wintry. Cassoeula is made after the first frost, because cabbage sweetens in the cold. Ossobuco takes two hours. Busecca, the tripe stew, was the Christmas Eve dish, and Milanese were once nicknamed busecconi, tripe-eaters, because of it. None of this makes much sense in July, and in July it largely disappears from menus.
The paradox is that Milan is now the Italian city with the widest range of foreign cuisines and the smallest quantity of its own. Perhaps a dozen historic trattorias still cook it properly, and you have to look for them: Masuelli San Marco, open since 1921, Antica Trattoria della Pesa, Al Matarel, Latteria di San Marco. Visitors from Turin will find fewer starters and much more hurry; visitors from Bologna will find more rice and far less fresh pasta.
The dishes of Milan
Risotto alla milanese
Carnaroli rice toasted in butter with onion, cooked with meat broth, coloured and perfumed with saffron threads, then beaten at the end with cold butter and Grana Padano. The orthodox version starts the soffritto with beef marrow, which gives a roundness butter alone cannot. It should be served all'onda: loose enough to ripple when the plate is tilted.
Cotoletta alla milanese
A bone-in veal rib chop about a finger thick, breaded in egg and breadcrumbs and fried in clarified butter until deep gold, still faintly pink inside. The thin, plate-wide version known as 'elephant's ear' is a modern variant, often beef. The old argument with Vienna over which schnitzel came first has never been settled and never will be.
Cassoeula
Savoy cabbage cooked for hours with the cheap parts of the pig (ribs, rind, trotters, ears, small sausages) until the fat melts into the leaves. Traditionally made only after the first frost has sweetened the cabbage, and served with polenta. It is the heaviest and best thing in a Milanese winter, and few places cook it daily, so call ahead.
Ossobuco with gremolada
A thick cross-cut slice of veal shank, bone and marrow intact, floured and braised in white wine with a little tomato, finished off the heat with gremolada: raw lemon zest, parsley and garlic chopped together. Served with the saffron risotto, the one traditional Milanese dish that combines a first and second course on one plate. The marrow is dug out with a narrow spoon.
Mondeghili
Meatballs made from leftover boiled beef with mortadella, bread soaked in milk, egg, parsley and lemon zest, breaded and fried in butter. The name travels from Arabic al-bunduqa via Spanish albóndiga, a relic of Spanish rule. Eaten warm, as a starter or a bar snack, and the best possible use for yesterday's boiled meat.
Busecca
Tripe stewed with borlotti beans, vegetables, tomato and Grana Padano until it is nearly a thick soup. It was the Christmas Eve dish and gave Milanese their old nickname. Today only a handful of trattorias make it, usually in winter and often on one fixed day of the week: ask before you plan a meal around it.
Nervetti in insalata
Veal knee cartilage and tendon boiled for hours, cooled, sliced into strips and dressed with onion, parsley, oil and vinegar. It was bar food, served with wine, and pickled giardiniera is its natural companion. Gelatinous and crunchy at once: people either love it or push the plate away, with no middle ground.
Riso al salto
Leftover saffron risotto pressed flat in a buttered pan and cooked until it forms a crisp golden crust on both sides, like a rice cake. It began as a way to use yesterday's rice and several historic restaurants now make it deliberately. Served whole rather than sliced, and the crust should resist the fork.
Pizzoccheri della Valtellina
Short buckwheat ribbons boiled with cabbage and potato, then layered with garlic butter, Grana and Valtellina Casera cheese. They come from the alpine valleys to the north, but Milan eats them all winter and treats them as part of the local repertoire. Extremely filling: a half portion is a real portion.
Lombard cheeses
Lombardy holds more protected cheese designations than any other Italian region: gorgonzola, named after a town twenty kilometres from the cathedral, taleggio from a valley above Bergamo, Grana Padano, quartirolo, bitto, Valtellina Casera. Sweet gorgonzola is eaten with polenta or layered with mascarpone; the piquant version takes chestnut honey. The intelligent way to end a Milanese dinner.
Local products
Milan has no picturesque countryside but sits inside one of Europe's most productive farming regions. The paddies of the Lomellina, west of the city, grow Carnaroli and Arborio rice. The dairy farms to the south feed Italy's largest cheese district: Grana Padano, gorgonzola, taleggio, quartirolo, mascarpone. Rice and fodder are still grown inside the South Milan Agricultural Park, a few kilometres from the ring road.
From the wider region come Valtellina bresaola IGP (air-dried salted beef, sliced thin with oil and lemon), buckwheat pizzoccheri, alpine cheeses from the Orobie mountains, the candied-fruit mustard of Cremona, and salame Milano, finely ground and mild. The city's bread is the michetta, a hollow rose-shaped roll descended from the Austrian Kaisersemmel and designed to be eaten the same day: by the next morning it is cardboard, which is precisely why Milanese buy bread daily.
Sweets and pastries
Panettone is Milanese, and its story is more commercial than legendary: a rich festive bread that became an industrial product in the 1920s, when Angelo Motta gave it its tall domed shape by letting it rise inside a paper collar. From November to December the city becomes the battleground of Italian pastry, with Marchesi (1824), Cova (1817), Cucchi, Gattullo, Vergani and a dozen artisan bakeries selling by advance order: if you want a good one at Christmas, reserve it weeks ahead.
Outside Christmas, the most Milanese sweet is pan de mej: small maize-flour cakes scented with elderflower, eaten on 23 April, St George's day, with cold single cream poured over. Only a few bakeries keep the tradition. Then there are Carnival chiacchiere, which last four days longer here because the Ambrosian rite ends its carnival on the Saturday, and barbajada, a nineteenth-century drink of chocolate, coffee and whipped cream invented by La Scala's impresario Domenico Barbaja. The Easter colomba is also a Milanese invention, from the 1930s.
Where to try them
The municipal covered markets are the infrastructure worth knowing: Wagner, near De Angeli, is the most complete, with strong fish and cheese counters; the Isola and Santa Maria del Suffragio markets serve their neighbourhoods. On Saturday mornings the open market on Via Fauché, near Parco Sempione, is where people actually shop. Mercato Centrale at the main station and Mercato Metropolitano are food halls: convenient, but a different proposition.
Shops: Peck, on Via Spadari since 1883, remains the city's benchmark food hall, with a wine cellar, charcuterie counter and hot deli. Luini, behind the Duomo since 1949, sells fried panzerotti to a permanent queue. Panificio Davide Longoni brought sourdough back to the city. For a real cotoletta you have to sit down: Trattoria Masuelli San Marco on Viale Umbria, open since 1921 and still in the same family; Antica Trattoria della Pesa; Al Matarel; Latteria di San Marco in Brera.
By neighbourhood: Brera and the Navigli canals are the most touristed and the most expensive; Isola, NoLo and Porta Romana hold the contemporary restaurants; Via Paolo Sarpi is the historic Chinatown and serves the best Chinese food in Italy; Ticinese and Bovisa keep prices sane.
When to go
Winter is when Milanese cooking makes sense: cassoeula from November to February, after the first frost, plus busecca, ossobuco and pizzoccheri. December turns on two dates: 7 December, the feast of Sant'Ambrogio, with the Oh Bej! Oh Bej! street fair around the Castello Sforzesco, and Christmas, which the city spends arguing about panettone.
Carnival runs four days longer here than in the rest of Italy because of the local Ambrosian rite, so the fried chiacchiere stay in the windows into the following weekend. On 23 April a few bakeries still make pan de mej. Two dates to plan around rather than into: the Salone del Mobile design fair in April and Fashion Week in September and February, when hotel prices spike and restaurants are unbookable. In August roughly half the historic trattorias close.
Food tours and classes here
Frequently asked questions
What food is Milan known for?
Saffron risotto alla milanese, the breaded bone-in veal cutlet fried in butter, ossobuco with gremolada, and cassoeula, a winter stew of cabbage and pork. Panettone, the Christmas cake, is also Milanese, as is the Easter colomba.
Does a real cotoletta alla milanese have the bone in?
Yes. The traditional cutlet is a rib chop about a finger thick, bone attached, breaded and fried in clarified butter and still pink at the centre. The thin plate-sized 'elephant ear' version is more recent and often made with beef; Milanese accept it but do not call it the original.
Where do I eat traditional Milanese food?
At a small group of historic trattorias: Masuelli San Marco, Antica Trattoria della Pesa, Al Matarel, Latteria di San Marco. Book ahead, note that many close on Sundays, and remember that winter dishes such as cassoeula appear only between November and February.
How expensive is eating out in Milan?
It is Italy's most expensive city. In a traditional trattoria a first course runs 12 to 18 euros, a cotoletta 22 to 32, and dinner lands at 45 to 60 euros a head. Two local strategies help: the fixed-price weekday business lunch at 12 to 18 euros, and aperitivo between 6 and 9pm, where 10 to 15 euros buys a drink and a buffet that can replace dinner.