Five Top Tables: The Best Restaurants in Milan Right Now

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The cinematic room telegraphs old-school Italy. There’s wooden, wine-filled shelves, a long marble counter and a rustic tiled floor. What there’s not is an actual kitchen — but you wouldn’t know it. The blackboard menu includes a crostini section, focaccia and assorted altro, or “other.” Among the highlights on a cold night: blistered friggitelli peppers with crumbled sardines and lemon (€6); baked radicchio drizzled with balsamic (€10); a wedge of savory Parmesan panettone with steaming hot slices of the pork sausage cotechino (€12); and a yeasty bun piled high with fatty slices of the prosciutto-like culatta (€14). 

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Some wines are listed on the blackboard alongside the food, but it’s worth talking through selections with the server, who’ll bring over a couple to taste. A dinner for two with leftovers was €81 and would have been cheaper if we hadn’t had eight glasses of wine between us. Via Melzo, 12; osteriaallaconcorrenza.superbexperience.com

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Business Meal: Langosteria Montenapoleone, Quadrilatero della Moda

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The latest outpost of the high-grade minichain Langosteria (among its outposts is one at the LVMH-owned Cheval Blanc Paris hotel) has landed in Milan’s powerful fashion district — specifically, on the top three floors of the Palazzo Fendi Milano, the brand’s recently opened flagship. It’s a place with direct appeal for the local, well-dressed business community and hungry shoppers.

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The restaurant itself is set on the fifth floor, with indoor seats for 120, and 40 more outdoors when the weather’s nice. (On the sixth floor is the group’s bar, Ally’s; a new restaurant brand, Pepe, will debut on the fourth floor.) The menu, essentially the same at lunch and dinner, celebrates seafood. There are a handful of oysters, starting at €7. You can go all the way up to a grand plateau royale, replete with langoustines, gambero rosso and sea scallops for €240. Other raw seafood options include the popular red tuna carpaccio (€32).

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Among cooked seafood selections, there’s spaghetti decorated with clams and Galician sea urchin (€42) and charcoal-grilled black grouper chateaubriand (€54), which serves two and is one of the bestsellers. 

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Cocktails range from the omnipresent spicy margarita to the lesser-known nuclear daiquiri spiked with green chartreuse, both for €20. The vast wine list includes over 160 Champagnes. Corso Giacomo Matteotti 9; langosteria.com/en/langosteria-montenapoleone

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No Reservations: Chifa, Chinatown

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Milan has an unexpectedly vibrant Chinatown that dates to the 1920s, when immigrant silk and leather workers set up shop there. Just outside the heart of it is the bustling Chifa. It’s a go-to spot for local food writer and culinary tour guide Elizabeth De Filippo-Jones. For one thing, in a city that values bookings, you can generally walk in.

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“They take reservations, but even if you show up without one, the wait is usually manageable,” she notes. “Plus, the long food menu is ideal for groups who like the heat, or don’t. And it leans vegetable-forward, but with plenty of meat options, mixing gentler Yunnan dishes, sour, spicy and brothy, with fiery Sichuan plates.” 

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Among De Filippo-Jones’s favorite selections are the mapo tofu (on the menu as “tofu brasato con peperoni” for €6), cucumber salad in garlic sauce (€7) and a bowl of classic Yunnan rice noodles with pork ragu and pickled vegetables, ready to be mixed at the table (€12). She also finds good pairings: “There’s a good, if short, list of affordable, high-acidity white wines from small producers, spanning Alto Adige to Campania.” Viale Montello, 5; instagram.com/chifa_restaurant_milano

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DINE: Cesarino, Centro Storico

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There are a couple outlets of Cesarino, including one helpfully located right on the Piazza Duomo, and each specializes in just one thing: paninis. They’re served on sturdy, chewy rolls, made every night in preparation for the next day with an emphasis on Italian products. Cured meats — because 75% of the sandwiches feature some kind of pork product — are front and center behind display cases in the old-school spaces designed for takeaway orders.

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Among the choices: prosciutto di Parma with buffalo mozzarella, sweet little tomatoes and pesto (€8.50) and pistachio-studded mortadella with mache and creamy, tangy squacquerone cheese (€7.50). For the vegetarians, brie is topped with slices of grilled zucchini and pungent olive tapenade (€7).

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One discerning DINE writer favors the #22 (Parma ham, mozzarella and truffle sauce) “for an incredible” €7.50, and the #14 (speck Alto Adige, gorgonzola, arugula and truffle sauce). “So much better than Pret ;-) Very close to the Duomo,” the diner says. Piazza Duomo, 20; cesarinomilano.it

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