Cantina Piemontese

Cantina Piemontese has been feeding Milan since 1908, and that alone gives it a certain authority. The address on Via Laghetto places it a short walk from the Duomo, beside the historic Statale university, in an area that once looked onto the small harbour where marble and coal arrived through the Navigli for the construction of the cathedral. That old commercial memory still suits the place: cultured, busy, faintly old world, very Milan. 

In the kitchen, Ivo Boggini has been cooking here since 1984, with the calm confidence of a man who has seen fashions come and go and kept his hand steady on the classics. His strong suit is ossobuco, though the menu also leans proudly into Piedmont with dishes such as batsoà, tagliolini al brucio and ravioli al plin. The room helps: velvet seating, carefully designed lighting, historic floors, timber beams, a few design minded flourishes, and a garden terrace that becomes a small urban privilege when Milan remembers how to do spring. 

This is the kind of restaurant that appeals less through theatre than through continuity, atmosphere and the pleasure of eating regional cooking in a place that has earned its permanence. In Milan, that counts for quite a lot.