Looking for an Italian restaurant in Chicago? Try throwing a pebble in the air in any direction—you’re bound to hit one.
While you’ll find the red-sauce Italian-American joints on Taylor Street (Pompei, Rosebud), or the more true-to-native Italian cooking in and around downtown (Monteverde, Il Carciofo), restaurants devoted to a specific region of Italy are more rare (I do like Osteria Langhe, specializing in Piedmontese cooking).
Il Milanese Ristorante in North Center has the obligatory lasagna and carbonara, but it also features its namesake dishes from Milan, the host city, alongside Cortina, of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan is in the province of Lombardy, which like the 20 other regions of Italy, has its own distinct cooking style. Lombardy is where risotto was popularized (rice is more of a staple than pasta here), as is minestrone, and the cheeses gorgonzola and mascarpone. Butter is used more often than olive oil in Lombardy, and dishes tend to feature creamier sauces than other parts of Italy.
There’s a section of Il Milanese’s menu labeled Piatti Tradizionali—traditional plates—where you can sample dishes from this region.
By far the most impressive is the Costoletta Classica ($48), a pounded-and-breaded veal cutlet that’s fried in butter and as wide as a hubcap. An especially warming dish is the ossobuco ($46), a hunk of veal shank that’s braised for hours, covered in a rich beefy pan sauce, then served over a saffron risotto that’s as yellow as a sunflower.
Tripe is a popular cut in Lombardian cooking, a reflection of Italy’s nose-to-tail eating predilection. Here, in the La Busecca Mantecata, honeycomb tripe is stewed in a tomato sauce with Spanish beans. It’s great to swipe up with the accompanying grilled ciabatta bread.
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Il Milanese Ristorante
2201 W. Montrose Ave., Chicago
ilmilanesechicago.com
Closed Mondays
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