Best of Milan

Swiss-Italian Alain Locatelli is a pastry genius - visit his small breakfast spot to enjoy his creations: a rotating, wide selection of rich, buttery pastries of the French tradition. Recommended orders: - one of everything with your favorite kind of coffee. There's often a line, so make sure you bring your patience with you.

Aurora Zancanaro founded and runs her tiny little bakery in the center of Milan. She learned from her mother, growing up eating only what her mother would cook and bake. She mostly focuses on delicious bread, but also offers other baked goods and breakfast pastries, especially on Saturdays. The menu changes daily so check out her website to learn what's available. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera wrote about her: "Sourdough aside, her trademark are the colorful turbans she knots on her head to keep her long brown hair in place while she bakes. But, in addition to a face that seems made to work on Instagram, there is much more in Aurora Zancanaro. Thirty-three years old, founder of "Le Polveri" in the Sant'Ambrogio area of ​​Milan, she is one of the very few new generation bakers. She tells it herself: the profession is still not very feminine, and this situation should change. After all, the work is hard: she kneads at all hours and the bags of flour to be lifted weigh 25 kilos. For Aurora Zancanaro there is certainly no valid reason to stop. And yet she shows herself to be realistic. In fact, she advises young women to approach the profession in a conscious way: "It is a step that must be accepted with the mind, but also with the body - she says in an interview -. For this reason, after bakery school, my suggestion is to try to work at least a year before definitively taking this path ». Hers is a curious path. She was born in Treviso, after high school she graduated in Industrial Chemistry at Ca 'Foscari, in Venice. She started working for a Venetian company that makes waterproof sheets, then at the university as a research fellow. But her enthusiasm was little. On the other hand, her family has always made bread at home with mother yeast. She knows what she is, she knows her scent, her timing. So she takes a pause for reflection and signs up for a baking course. All of of her studies her chemical knowledge suddenly becomes precious. And she opens up a world of possibilities. In Milan, during the Expo, she manages Mama Petra bakery at the Metropolitan Market. She then has an experience with Davide Longoni before Molino Vigevano asks her to manage a bakery in London. She packs her bags and part of her, but here she realizes she wants to open her own bakery. So she returns to Milan, finds the tiny space in via Ausonio and on November 30, 2017 she inaugurates «Le Polveri». Fifty square meters, with a beautiful frescoed ceiling, which contains everything: the laboratory, the oven, the refrigerator, the sales counter and a spectacular showcase in iron and glass on which the sign made by friends is placed. Today Zancanaro bakes three days a week, at a pace that allows her to do everything on her own. And with the slowness you need for good bread. In the afternoon she kneads her after having refreshed her three different mother yeasts, using 15 different flours from as many Italian mills. Towards evening the wheels are cooled to ripen and then enter the oven the next morning. She was asked if she didn't feel undermined doing the job she does with a chemistry degree in her pocket. In reality it is thanks to that, she is convinced, that «Le Polveri» was born. It is no coincidence that she calls her bakery a “panificio", not a “panetteria". Here the bread is created, it isn’t only sold."

A very centrally-located and affordable traditional Milanese trattoria. They usually have a great deal for lunch: 17€ for a primo, a secondo, and a side dish. Unthinkable in Milan! But they don't take reservations, so make sure you head over early to secure a spot and not have to wait in line. Recommended orders: - risotto alla milanese: saffron risotto; - vitello tonnato: cold, sliced veal covered with a creamy, mayonnaise-like sauce flavored with tuna and capers; - cotoletta alla milanese: fried veal cutlet; - roast beef shank (ossobuco) served with polenta.

Butcher/chef Giuseppe Zen's small butcher shop with a kitchen is located inside Mercato Comunale, a food market right by the Darsena, one of Milan's canals. Come here to enjoy a wide selection of different meat dishes, including obscure specialties from the Lombardia region, and also other areas of Italy. Choose from the black board hanging underneath the sign or directly from the counter display. Recommended orders: - brasato: braised beef cheek ; - Milanese mondeghili: also known as Monday Meatballs, as they were traditionally prepared with leftovers from the Sunday roast; - fried veal brain. Place your order at the counter, pay, and wait for your order seated on a bench outside, overlooking the canal. The meat is of the highest quality and comes from organic and grass-fed animals - so don't be suprised by the price tag!

Featured on "Searching for Italy" by Stanley Tucci, who describes Osteria del Treno as embodying "the history and spirit of Milan like almost nowhere else." From their website: "We offer a modern and light Milanese and Lombard cuisine, attentive to known and lesser known traditional recipes, through the scrupulous choice of raw materials, the quality of the ingredients, the origin, the freshness and the seasonality. The menu changes with the seasons, the wine list is extensive and full of surprises, with particular attention to the value for money and the selection of wines by the glass. We are among the promoters of the Alliance between Chefs, farmers, breeders, small artisans, linked and respectful of the territory, well represented by the Earth Market and the Slow Food Presidia. Small agricultural producers chosen with care allow us to express a cuisine of tradition and at the same time current, dishes with attention to execution and precise taste." Recommended dishes: - "lingua in salsa verde" - cow tongue with parsley and anchovy sauce; - "zuppa di ceci" - chickpea soup; - "ossobuco alla milanese con risotto giallo" - roast beef hind shank with saffron risotto; - "lumache in umido alla lombarda" - stewed snails Lombard style; - "pollo al forno" - roast chicken.