The Best Places in Ticinese & around

A courtyard tucked inside a period building gives Contraste an air of old Milan before the room itself surprises you with bold blues, reds, and greens. It holds a Michelin star, and the chef, Matias Perdomo, runs two tasting menus: one anchored in tradition, one decidedly not. The wine list leans French, the team steers pairings with genuine care, and the whole thing lands somewhere between a dinner party and a quiet dare.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A butcher shop counter tucked into the municipal market by the Darsena canal, where the menu board lists sandwiches alongside grilled cuts and meatballs, and the meat is organic and pasture-raised. The chef will talk you through it if you stall at the board, which you probably will. Priced higher than the setting suggests, though the setting is a working market stall, so adjust expectations accordingly.

1. 50 Top Italy #6 · The Best Sandwiches
2. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan

The sushi counter runs omakase only, eight to eleven courses, no à la carte wandering allowed. This is a contemporary Japanese restaurant where the chef moves between raw fish and Angus beef with equal confidence, folding miso, truffle, and yuzu into the through-line. The room reads like a serious night out in Milan, dressed up but not stiff. A Michelin Guide selection, and ranked among Italy's top sushi spots by 50 Top Italy.

1. 50 Top Italy #4 · The Best Sushi Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The lacquered bento box is both the premise and the personality here. Yoji Tokuyoshi, once Massimo Bottura's sous-chef at Osteria Francescana, pivoted from fine dining to a format rooted in his mother's packed lunches, and the result is a casual restaurant where Japanese and Mediterranean impulses share the compartments. The cooking is precise without being stiff, and the room feels like a chef genuinely having a better time than before.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A counter where the kitchen plays out in front of you sets the tone at this Milan bistro, where grilled meat, fish, and vegetables get finished in plain sight. The menu is classic Italian, anchored by daily specials that shift with what's good, and the wine list runs deep enough to keep things interesting by the glass. The room is relaxed and sociable in the way that only a place that has clearly figured itself out tends to be.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan

A pizzeria where you can order a single slice à la carte or surrender to a tasting flight of four to six courses, each a different style of pizza served in sequence. The wine cellar is the quietly absurd part: a selection of bottles and champagnes that would embarrass most fine-dining rooms. Classic pies sit alongside fried and baked options, and the dough holds up its end. Ranked first on 50 Top Pizza Italy.

1. 50 Top Pizza #4 · 50 Top Pizza World
2. 50 Top Pizza 2025 · Best Wine List · 50 Top Pizza World Special Awards
3. 50 Top Pizza #1 · 50 Top Pizza Italy

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The yakitori grill sits right at the entrance so the smoke hits you before the host does. This is a Japanese contemporary restaurant where a Kyoto-born chef turns out kushiyaki skewers over open flame alongside wagyu cooked tableside over charcoal by the guest. One wall holds over 150 sake labels, refreshed weekly, and the sommelier has an opinion about all of them. The room is spare and calm, the kind of place that takes the food seriously without asking you to.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The name on the awning is Japanese, but the spirit is closer to a grandmother's kitchen than a sushi counter. This cozy restaurant near the Duomo was opened to serve the vegetables, curries, and donburi that Milan's many Japanese spots tend to skip entirely. The ka-ree and the potato salad with Japanese mayonnaise are the kind of things you don't realize you've been missing until they're in front of you.

1. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan