85 Bistrot – Milanese cooking without shortcuts on the Rondò

85 Bistrot sits on Piazza Martiri di Via Fani in Sesto San Giovanni, a short metro ride north of central Milan, in a town once nicknamed Italy's Stalingrad for its industrial and left-wing past and close to the central roundabout that gives the district its everyday name, the Rondò. It was opened by chef Daniele Ferrari with his wife Samanta Arosio, who runs the dining room, on a promise to cook Milanese and Lombard staples properly at a moment when, as one early reviewer put it, fashionable foam and sushi had pushed that tradition aside. The result is a saffron risotto and a bone-in veal cutlet that locals still talk about. The restaurant is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, recognition for an honest, unpretentious kitchen rather than spectacle. Behind the modest frontage on the square, the room gives onto a mezzanine and a terrace, and the week runs on familiar rhythms of lunch, dinner and aperitivo, six days with both services, Monday for lunch only.

01The room and the setting

The restaurant occupies a corner of Piazza Martiri di Via Fani, a square in the former industrial heart of Sesto San Giovanni, with easy parking alongside. Past the entrance, a small dining room leads to a mezzanine fitted with extra tables, and beyond that a terrace shaded by a wide umbrella, used for lunch and dinner whenever the weather allows.

A wall-mounted wine dispenser, set beneath a magnum-sized bottle of Bricco dell'Uccellone, lets diners taste serious bottles by the glass alongside the everyday list.

02The chef

85 Bistrot is run by chef-patron Daniele Ferrari and his wife Samanta Arosio, who opened it together and divide the work in the classic trattoria way: he at the stoves, she commanding the dining room. When the food guide il Golosario profiled the bistrot in June 2020, it singled Ferrari out as a cook of real talent choosing, deliberately, not to chase trends.

Insider tip

Two minutes from the Sesto Rondò metro stop on Milan's M1 line.

The magazine described a chef determined to keep alive the Milanese and Lombard repertoire that had fallen out of fashion elsewhere in the city, built around dishes his grandparents' generation would recognise rather than reinvented plates.

03The cooking

The kitchen's reputation rests on two dishes above all: a saffron risotto finished to a loose, glossy set, and a veal cutlet kept thick and on the bone, breaded and fried in the old Milanese style rather than pounded thin.

Beyond the two signatures, the menu runs to mondeghili, the city's own meatballs made from leftover boiled meat, paccheri with squid and bottarga for diners who want the sea instead of the stove, octopus skewers over wild greens with Nocellara olives, and a daily catch served with chickpea cream. Dinner tends to close with a ricotta heart dressed with honey and pistachios.

04What to order

The current card, read on the restaurant's own order pages in October 2026, keeps faith with the same repertoire. To start, burratina with cherry tomatoes, Cantabrian anchovies and Pantelleria oregano, or 36-month Parma prosciutto from the Villani selection.

To finish, the sbrisolona crumble cake is served with a bourbon-vanilla pastry cream (8 euros).

05Wine and drinks

Samanta Arosio's wine-by-the-glass selection, changed regularly and priced for everyday drinking, was already being praised when il Golosario first wrote about the bistrot, calling it a place where guests could enjoy serious bottles without a serious bill.

06When to go and booking

85 Bistrot opens for lunch every day from 12 to 3pm, and adds dinner service from 6pm to 1am Tuesday to Sunday; Monday evenings are closed. The restaurant takes reservations by phone or WhatsApp on +39 349 898 5891, and the terrace, open from spring through autumn, is worth requesting directly for lunch on a fine day.

07The neighbourhood

The square itself sits two minutes from Sesto Rondò, the Milan M1 metro stop that opened in 1986 and still serves the commercial heart of Sesto San Giovanni, its name taken from the roundabout, the rondò, that local traffic still circles. A short walk away, the former Breda steelworks now house the open-air concert venue Carroponte, and the gardens of Villa Zorn offer a quieter contrast to the square's café-and-bank bustle.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.