Michelin-starred restaurants in Lombardy: eating with the Michelin Guide

Every year, the Michelin Guide picks out the restaurants with outstanding gastronomic quality. For every executive chef, getting a Michelin star means recognition for the constant work to combine excellence and creativity at the table. Discerning palates, are you ready to discover the ways of taste? Let's see which  Michelin-starred restaurants in Lombardy will shine in 2019.

The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900 and it is now the most authoritative restaurant guide in the world. Michelin stars are the symbols that the prestigious Guide awards to the most exclusive restaurants in the main European countries and, in recent years, in New York, San Francisco, and Japan.
 
It awards from one star to a maximum of three. The stars are awarded according to the strict criteria of the Guide not to the chef but to the restaurant: in fact, if a star-winning chef opens a new business does not take the award with him. Similarly, if a Michelin-starred restaurant changes location, the star is not inherited automatically: do you remember Carlo Cracco's restaurant, which lost one of its two stars when the business moved to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan?
 
But how are the Michelin stars awarded and who assesses the restaurants? The judgment is up to the Michelin inspectors, totally unidentified reviewers who observe the philosophy of the restaurant trying the cuisine several times in complete anonymity. The inspectors evaluate the personality of the chef and the quality of the raw materials, but also mastery of the culinary techniques, the consistency between quality and price and the solidity of the proposals over time. In this way, the Michelin Guide rewards excellence in a reliable and impartial manner and this is why a Michelin star is the highest award in the restaurant industry.
 
In addition, the Michelin Guide awards the symbol of the Bib Gourmand, the famous Michelin Man who smiles and licks his mustache, to restaurants that are particularly attractive even when it comes to paying the bill, that is where the full menu costs less than 32 euros excluding drinks (35 for the capitals and major tourist destinations).

Lombardy is the region with the most stars in Italy and hosts sixty Michelin-starred restaurants: two restaurants have three stars, six have two, while another fifty-two restaurants have been awarded one Michelin star.
 
Here are the two restaurants with three Michelin stars in Lombardy. Da Vittorio is a restaurant located in Brusaporto in the province of Bergamo. It expresses the philosophy of the "Lombard tradition and creative genius" of the Cerea brothers; an exceptional cellar and bar have guaranteed this Michelin-starred gourmet restaurant the highest recognition from the Michelin Guide.
 
The historic Dal Pescatore restaurant is located in Canneto sull'Oglio in the province of Mantua and has boasted three Michelin stars for over ten years. Chef Nadia Santini's creations focus on the harmony of flavors promoting a real culture of taste. Dal Pescatore is a family-run place that stands out among the starred restaurants in Lombardy for its careful and genuine proposals.
 
Four of the restaurants with two Michelin stars in Lombardy are located in Milan and two in the province of Brescia: Miramonti l'Altro in Concesio, known for its Italian-French menu, and Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano, where Stefano Baiocco is the chef.
 
In 2019 there are two new stars in the firmament of the Michelin Guide: Materia, a restaurant run by the young chef Davide Caranchini, and the Sedicesimo Secolo run by the talented Simone Breda, a pupil of Gualtiero Marchesi.

Milan is the city with the fourth highest number of stars in Italy with no less than four restaurants with two Michelin stars and another fourteen one-star restaurants.
 
Speaking of the Michelin-starred restaurants of Milan in 2019, of those with two stars we find the famous Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia led by chefs Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani, who recently also opened the Bistrot Voce inside the Gallerie d'Italia Museum.
 
At Vun, Neapolitan chef Andrea Aprea serves the best of Italian dishes in a cosmopolitan and unique gastronomic experience: the Michelin Guide says that the innovative cuisine of Vun "looks to the future without ever forgetting its origins".
 
In the Mandarin Oriental hotel, there could not fail to be a restaurant of equal standing. The Silk chef, Antonio Guida, responds with his modern and sophisticated dishes to a clientele that is different and refined: the exotic influences are perfectly integrated with the Milanese style of Silk, whose symbol is a dessert-tribute based on Campari with grapefruit, cherry, and white chocolate.
 
Milan is style, Milan is design, Milan is classic and contemporary at the same time. Enrico Bartolini at Mudec is one of the restaurants of chef that has been awarded most stars in Italy (6 stars for 5 restaurants), as well as one of the four restaurants in Milan with two Michelin stars. In this "haute cuisine factory" the quest for excellence and creativity at table materializes at each course.
 
Besides the famous Cracco Restaurant in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, there are several other Michelin-starred restaurants in Milan. Of these, Berton is a modern restaurant in Porta Nuova that is notable for its large windows and kitchen in full view, allowing you to see how the food is cooked, while Contraste promises to impress lovers of fine dining with new flavors in form and appearance.
 
At Lume, sophisticated flavors are enhanced by the elegant ambiance and the chic mise en place in the setting of the former Richard Ginori porcelain factory. Joia, on the other hand, offers biodynamic dishes in a relaxed atmosphere and was the first European haute cuisine vegetarian restaurant to receive a Michelin star in 1996.