Milan Food Guide: Risotto, Ossobuco & the City's Best Trattorias

Milan's cuisine is among Italy's most distinctive and least understood internationally — a northern Italian tradition of butter rather than olive oil, risotto rather than pasta, polenta rather than bread, and slow-braised meats that reflects the city's Alpine hinterland and Po Valley fertility. Risotto alla Milanese — saffron-yellow Carnaroli rice cooked in bone marrow and finished with Parmigiano — is the city's defining dish, best at Trattoria del Nuovo Macello near the slaughterhouse district (the old neighbourhood that produced the recipe). Ossobuco (braised veal shank) and cotoletta alla Milanese (breaded veal cutlet, ancestor of the Wiener Schnitzel) are the other pillars. Aperitivo, Milan's most important contribution to Italian culture, runs 6–9pm daily — a cocktail (Aperol Spritz, Negroni, or the Milanese Campari Soda) comes with a spread of buffet food that can effectively serve as dinner. Brera neighbourhood is the traditional aperitivo district; Navigli's canal-side bars make the ritual scenic. The Mercato del Suffragio in Porta Romana on Saturdays is the city's best farmer's market.