Snacks – All our local tips

In the area between the red metro stop Wagner and the red metro stop De Angeli you can find many good pizzerias, the odd Chinese or Japanese restaurant. But not a great quanitity of bars. Whilst the more sophisticated crowd may head to Smooth (Via Buonarotti), the younger crowd usually head to via Ravizza and more than often Akkademia Bar.

With outside seating, it’s busy all seasons and on tap you can find the good quality beer such as Czech Pilsener Urquell, London Pride and Guiness. It’s décor is a little interesting, I think it’s an attempt at an English style club without the grunginess! The cocktails are fresh and tasty. The crowd is younger than surrounding areas, usually in the range of 18-30.

It’s a perfect place for a pre or post dinner drink in this popular restaurant district in Milan. It’s also close to the just re-done Teatro Nazionale nearby in Piazza Piemonte which is currently showing Beauty and the Beast.

If you are a bit hungry you can find a late night snack of french fries or popcorn. Yes, that’s right, popcorn isn’t only reserved for movie cinemas! Open till 02:00, it’s at it’s busiest during the Happy Hour (18:00 – 22:00) or after 23.00.

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Akkademia Bar | Bars, Snacks | Cocktail € 7.00
Via Ravizza 1 | Fiera | +39243981132
18:00 – 02:00 daily

Forget this place if you are on diet! It’s the house of temptation and you will notice it just giving a quick look to all the cakes and donuts exposed by the shop-window. They serve breakfast, lunch and brunches (on Sat and Sun). Dinner is served only on Thursday nights.

Cheesecakes (Well, I suggest you the chocolate one, of course!), muffins, scones, chocolate, all you want is finishing your meal just to get some dessert! At brunch you can choose between different meals with different prices and amount of food. Pancakes, sandwiches, burgers.

What I like most of this restaurant is the interior decoration such as the wonderful lamp hanging from the ceiling and the cake stand. And they cakes themselves, they are wonderfully decorated.

And what makes a restaurant 100% American? Coffee! That’s why you can get as much as coffee as you want for free!

Bakery is also take-away: you will get your donut or muffin wrapped in pretty boxes or paper.

Reservation is recommended for brunch.

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American Donuts Cafè | Coffee & tea, Snacks, Restaurants (USA) | Brunch € 15.00
Via Giuseppe Sirtori, 4 | Porta Vittoria | +39289057779
Mon – Wed 07:30 – 19:30, Thu 07:30 – 23:00, Fri 07:30 – 19:30, Sat 08:30 – 19:30, Sun 09:00 – 19:00

While I wouldn’t write home about the fantastic service, I would highly recommend this cafe for its chocolate. Whether it be a tasty chocolate croissant with your morning cappuccino, a slice of cake for that afternoon sugar burst or very chocolatey gelato after dinner – it should satisfy your chocolate craving.

Yes, you can get chocolate gelato at any gelateria, but there aren’t many with a range of different chocolate flavours like this! On three levels, this café is also a good place to sit down and have a catch up with friends or watch the world go by for a while after a big shopping session.

There is also a great selection of chocolate based products on sale, perfect for gifts. Lunch is also good value and boasts ethic dishes such as couscous.

The only downside is that you may need to wait a while before it arrives. I like it as it’s a place where you feel like you can take some time to relax, read the newspaper and indulge!

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Choco Cult | Coffee & tea, Snacks | Coffee & cake € 5.00
Via Michelangelo Buonarroti, 7 | Fiera | +39248027319
08:00 – 00:00 daily

Chocolat Milano is one of the best “gelaterie” (ice-cream bar) in Milano. As the name says, its speciality is actually “chocolate”!

What I like most of this bar is the atmosphere. Small tables where you can sit with friends or with a nice book, eating a wonderful ice-cream or a delicious slice of chocolate cake covered with strawberries.

There are different types of chocolate ice-cream: white chocolate, chocolate with 95% cocoa, chili chocolate, rhum chocolate. Of course you can find also other tastes, like pistachio, which I actually suggest since it was one of the tastier I have ever tried. Chili chocolate is a must, I think.

If you pass by Chocolat in winter, don’t worry. They serve wonderful hot chocolate. I tried the cinnamon one, creamy and nice flavoured.

Beside ice-cream they also serve cakes, chocolate bars (self-produced by Chocolate Milano) and mineral waters from Norway and Fiji.

I suggest not to take the car to get to Chocolat, since there are not many parking places. I also suggest, if possible, not to go at lunch time, when hundreds of employees of the neighbourhood choose to have a Chocolat ice-cream for lunch!

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Chocolat Milano | Snacks | Icecream from € 2.00
Via Boccaccio Giovanni, 9 | Centro | +39248100597
07:30 – 01:00 daily

After having tasted falafel during my staying in Sweden, I have travelled around Milano looking for a good place where to eat Lebanese specialities. I have found this nice restaurant and I still think this is one of the few places in Milano where you can taste a perfectly cooked Falafel.

The interior design is not very “ethnic”, but modern and quite “western” but food is really delicious! I usually go there at lunch, when they serve a complete Menu for just € 10.00. You can choose between several dishes and I can ensure that you won’t leave the table with any space in your stomach!

I recommend you to try the Hummus, Falafel and the typical Lebanese salad with fried pita bread in. At dinner they serve more complex menu for € 30,00, otherwise you can just order A la carte. I recommend reservation at weekends evening.

After having tasted falafel during my staying in Sweden, I have travelled around Milano looking for a good place where to eat Lebanese specialities. I have found this nice restaurant and I still think this is one of the few places in Milano where you can taste a perfectly cooked Falafel.

The interior design is not very “ethnic”, but modern and quite “western” but food is really delicious! I usually go there at lunch, when they serve a complete Menu for just € 10.00. You can choose between several dishes and I can ensure that you won’t leave the table with any space in your stomach!

I recommend you to try the Hummus, Falafel and the typical Lebanese salad with fried pita bread in. At dinner they serve more complex menu for € 30,00, otherwise you can just order A la carte. I recommend reservation at weekends evening. Parking is not difficult.

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Dawali | Snacks, Restaurants (Lebanese) | Full lunch € 10.00
Via corrado II il salico, 10 | Porta Romana | +39284895668
Mon 18:00 – 23:30, Tue – Sat 12:00 – 23:30

With the summer hitting in full force again Hora Feliz is the place to be between 19:00 – 22:00! But be warned you may have to wait a bit for a seat but this year they have filled the footpath with as many tables as possible.

Whilst there are numerous bars in the young and lively area of Il Colonne (The Columns) and Piazza Vetra, this bar is unbeatable in terms of price to value ratio during the Happy hours. It usually attracts a young, value-conscious crowd.

Along with a 6 euro beer or a 7 euro cocktail, you can help yourself to a very big range of buffet food. Hot pasta, sausages and chips, fresh salads, Parmesan cheese, corn chips and salsa, foccacia and tarts for dessert. If you hang around till after 21:00 you may also get to taste their tasty focaccia with Nutella.

I find just before 19:00 or a little after 21:00 can be the best times to arrive and find a place. The cocktails are fresh and well mixed and the staff work hard to serve everyone as quickly as possible.

Anyway, while you’re waiting, you can help yourself to another plate of free food! If you happen to stop by after 22:00 and you’re feeling peckish, you can also find some tasty plates of Mexican style food.

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Hora Feliz | Bars, Snacks | Cocktail € 7.00
Via San Vito, 5 | Centro | +39028376587
18:00 – 02:00 daily

Luini is one of the most famous places in Milano since it’s one of the oldest bakeries in the city and it’s specialized in “panzerotti“. Bakery “Luini” has been open in Milano since 1949, when the family Luini emigrated from Southern Italy (Puglia).

Let’s start with a short description of this delicious product original from Southern Italy. A “panzerotto” is a circle of pizza dough, filled, folded in two and then cooked. It can be fried or baked.

The most typical “panzerotto” is the classical one filled with mozzarella cheese and tomato, but I think the most tasty one is the one with salami. Very popular in Italy is also  combining ricotta cheese (cottage cheese) with spinach, which is actually very good as a filling of a “panzerotto”!

Of course at Luini you can also find different sorts of bread and cakes. I tried once Walnut Bread, which was simply great. And a filled pastry with chocolate and pears!

Luini is very popular and is just behind Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which means that at lunch time you will have to stand in line for a while. A precious tip: Luini’s bakery has two entrances (one beside the other) but most of the time people stand in line just at on one side, thinking that the other one is the exit. This means that if you enter from the empty one you will get your panzerotto faster!

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Luini | Snacks | Panzerotti € 3.00
Via S. Radegonda 16 | Centro | +39286461917
Mon 10:00 – 15:00, Tue – Sat 10:00 – 20:00

So you’ve been out drinking, partying and who knows what else until late, very late. Now you’re starving, you are just dying for some food– let’s say it, you have the munchies. But every decent place has closed hours ago, and you don’t really find like hunting down one of the trucks that sell sausage and onions. What you really, really want is a hamburger, but not the ones made of cardboard and sawdust sold by some major chain–you want the real thing. And suddenly you know–Margy!

Probably the only fast food in the center to be open until dawn (depending on how many customers are coming in, and probably on whether they feel like it) and surely the best,

Margy has been feeding the night population for the past 40 years, and it’s still going strong. I have been going there for more than 15 years now, and not much has changed: not in the decor of the single, claustrophobic room and definitely not in the menu, that lists various kinds of hamburgers, fries and hot dogs; and thankfully not in the size, which can only be described as huge–what it takes to tame your monster craving.

A word of advice: you’ll probably find yourself in the company of policemen and other people who work at nights, so behave!

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Margy | Snacks | double hamburger € 4.40
Piazza Santo Stefano 2 | Centro
Open until dawn

If you want a good sandwich and you’re in Città Studi area there is a small pub, full off students at noon: the Neon pub. You can find a great assortment of sandwiches, from classical flavors to something more exotic, like ananas or herrings.

The atmosphere is particular, with some walls in bricks and others painted with bright colors. The walls are decorated with a lot of neon signs, that gives the name to the place.

Beside the sandwiches, as in any good pub, there is a good selection of beers. Most of the draught beers are English or Irish, plus a couple of Belgian ones. A curiosity is that all the bartenders are women.

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Neon Pub | Bars, Snacks | Sandwich € 3.00
Via Valvassori Peroni 61 | Porta Vittoria
09:00 – 01:00 daily

This is one of the most popular places among students and workers. For less than € 5.00 you can get a huge delicious “piadina“.

A piadina is a particular sort of bread, very thin and tasty, perfect to be rolled and filled with your favourite ingredients. The most famous piadina is filled with Squaqquerone (a fresh and creamy cheese), ham and tomatoes. But also “Vegetarian” ones are available.

The “restaurant” looks more like a snack bar. There are no proper tables, because most of the people get their piadina for take away. If you want to sit there is a small room on the left with stools and counter.

You can choose between a big or small piadina… of course I recommend the big one!

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Piadineria La Caveja | Snacks | Big piadine € 6.00
Corso Italia 38 | Porta Romana | +39245488267
Mon – Sat for lunch

Princi’s bakeries are great to devour a late light snack or something tasty for lunch. Probably having a fantastic slice of pizza at 05:00 is one of my first most memorable memories of Milan and it was at Princi in Piazza Venticinque Aprile after a night dancing in a club on Corso Como. (April 25 Square).

You will find pastries, pizza slices, focaccia, sandwiches, salad and lunch dishes. Really tasty and good quality for a quick meal.

There are 4 locations around the city:

Via Speronar, 6
Piazza XXV Aprile, 5
Largo La Foppa, 2
Via Ponte Vetero, 10

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Princi bakeries | Snacks | Small roll from € 0.50
Piazza XXV Aprile, 5 | Brera/Porta Nuova
24 hours daily

Before I moved to Italy, one of the first things that came to mind was FOOD! Salami, cheese, pizza, pasta oh and all coupled nicely with some wine of course! And of course, Italy didn’t disappoint me.

When it comes to cheese and salami I would recommend a visit to a fabulous jam-packed delicatessen just off the Corso Buenos Aires shopping strip.

Being Australian, my knowledge of Italian cheese was limited to Parmesan (Parmigiano) and Mozzarella and sadly, the only mozzarella I really knew was the copied version we put on our pizzas.

Now I can safely say that I have managed to try a reasonable percentage of the many cheese and cured meats Italy has to offer, but there is always something new to discover. Grab a few servings when you’ve worked up a hunger after shopping or maybe grab a few things for a picnic and relax in the nearby Giardini Publici (Public Gardens) near Porta Venezia.

MM Metro Lima is the closest stop.

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Salami & Cheese | Shopping, Snacks
Via Tadino / Via Vitruvio | Centrale/Greco
Mon 08:00 – 13:00, Tue – Sat 08:00 – 13:00 & 15:30 -19:30