The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Tortona

Enrico Bartolini holds three Michelin stars and runs this fine dining room on the third floor of Milan's Museum of Cultures, which gives dinner a certain gallery-adjacent seriousness before you've even sat down. The cooking is creative without being punishing about it: flavors run deep and layered, but following them is optional. Tasting menus and à la carte both available, and an off-menu cheese course with unusual pairings is worth asking about.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. 50 Top Italy #15 · The Best Italian Restaurants - Grand Restaurants
3. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan

A classic American bar format in a Milan neighborhood that doesn't get many tourists, Rita has been doing fresh, seasonal cocktails since before that phrase appeared on every drinks menu in the world. The team makes their own syrups and ingredients in-house, which was a minor act of rebellion when they started and now just reads as good practice. Europe's 50 Best Bars has it at number 49. The crowd is local, confident, and rarely consults the menu.

1. The 50 #49 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The name is the capacity: 28 seats in a quietly serious modern restaurant on Via Corsico. The kitchen buys from small producers, uses every scrap of what comes in, and has run that way long enough that it feels like conviction rather than a trend. The current chefs bring central Italian roots and Abruzzi instincts to the menu, which shifts with the season. The room is small enough that the team tends to know who ordered what without checking.

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

Soft lighting, a soundtrack turned up just enough, and a crowd that dressed for it: Langosteria is a sleek seafood restaurant on via Savona that Milan has made very much its own. The menu leans classic without being predictable, and the raw fish selection shifts daily with the market. The wine list runs deep into serious labels, which fits the room. Bring someone you're trying to impress, or at least someone who won't flinch at the bill.

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

Gluten-free, fully vegan, and somehow not the least bit preachy about either, Linfa is a plant-based restaurant in Milan where soft colors, scattered greenery, and a lounge vibe make the room feel more like somewhere you'd linger than somewhere you'd atone. The menu swings from pasta to sushi to a vegetable riff on a flambéed steak, which is the kind of range that keeps skeptics at the table. An eight-course tasting menu runs alongside à la carte.

1. 50 Top Italy #2 · The Best Vegetable Bistros

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The toilet is famously larger than the bar, which seats four people at a counter and leaves no room for ambiguity about what kind of night you're having. Backdoor 43 is a reservation-only cocktail bar tucked behind another bar on the Navigli, and the bartender on duty is working exclusively for you. Guests pick the music, the pace, and apparently the vibe. Very small, very Milan.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan

A 15-meter bar counter lined with bamboo shelves stacked floor-to-ceiling with rum pretty much tells you everything. Rita's Tiki Room is a cocktail bar on Milan's canalside strip, serving Tiki classics and house originals alongside Polynesian snacks with a Cantonese edge. The same team behind Rita around the corner runs this one, and the vibe is full commitment: proper accoutrements, no ironic winking at the theme.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide