Trattoria Masuelli

You don’t recognize an institution solely by the distant date written next to the restaurant’s name. You experience it through the regulars sitting alone at a table, cracking jokes with the waiter every time he passes, through recipes practiced so often that every bite feels self-evident, and through decor that is frozen in time yet alive. Here, there are 1930s Venini blown-glass chandeliers and immaculate white tablecloths. Trattoria Masuelli, one of the city’s historic establishments, embodies the very essence of the Italian trattoria and, of course, Milanese and Piedmontese cuisine: a soft orange-hued risotto topped with saffron threads, a thick Milanese veal cutlet perfectly breaded and served on the bone with a sprinkling of fleur de sel, mondeghili (Milanese breaded beef meatballs), beef tongue carpaccio, and pasta with white ragù. Other signature dishes steeped in culinary heritage include stone-ground “ottofile” corn polenta, Milanese-style tripe known as “foiolo,” and the classic “cassoeula,” slow-cooked in an earthenware dish with pig’s snout, ears, and feet, along with savoy cabbage. Nor can we fail to mention the vitello tonnato, pasta with flageolet beans so thick that a spoon stands upright in it, veal kidneys, or fried calf’s brains. You will savor it all in a cinematic setting, with writers’ dedications and framed portraits of celebrities and historical figures adorning the wood-paneled walls. And since cooking is so often a family story, Max Masuelli, the third generation of the Masuelli family to bear the name, can be found behind the stove.