Cracco in Galleria – Milanese grandeur under glass and iron

Cracco in Galleria occupies the first floor of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the glass-vaulted nineteenth-century arcade that has long served as Milan's grandest living room. Carlo Cracco, who trained under Alain Ducasse and Gualtiero Marchesi before becoming one of the chefs who reshaped Milanese haute cuisine, brought his restaurant to this address in 2018, after years of running it nearby simply as Cracco. The move placed his dining rooms directly beneath the arcade's wrought-iron and glass roof, among the mosaics and boutiques that have defined the Galleria since it opened in 1877. Spread across a five-floor building that also holds a café, a wine cellar and a private events room, the restaurant keeps three dining rooms and two private salons on its first floor, with a small fumoir tucked behind two ivory doors. It holds one MICHELIN Star.

01The room and the setting

The interiors are the work of Studio Peregalli, the Milanese atelier of Laura Sartori Rimini and Roberto Peregalli, who were responsible for the design of the entire five-floor building that houses the café, the restaurant, the wine cellar and the events floor above. Inside the dining rooms, boiserie finished in delicate blue-grey leads through three connected dining spaces and two private rooms, each kept deliberately understated rather than showy.

From the main restaurant, two small ivory doors open onto the Fumoir, a narrow, intimate room built around an original counter dating from the 1970s and modelled on Parisian bars — the spot to linger over a spirit or a classic cocktail once dinner has finished. On the second floor, the Sala G. Mengoni is kept free of fixed furniture bar a large marble counter inspired by the 1920s, built in Levanto marble, so it can be reconfigured for private events; the room's name nods to Giuseppe Mengoni, the architect who designed the Galleria itself in the neo-Renaissance style that still frames the building today.

02The chef

Carlo Cracco was born on 8 October 1965 in Creazzo, in the Veneto, and trained under Alain Ducasse and under Milan's own Gualtiero Marchesi before building his own reputation at the stove. He opened his first Milan restaurant in partnership with the delicatessen Peck, trading as Cracco-Peck; the partnership dissolved in 2007 and the restaurant was renamed simply Cracco. He held two MICHELIN Stars for over a decade, a rating lost in 2017, a year before the move into the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

Insider tip

Restaurant open Tue–Fri lunch & dinner, Mon & Sat dinner only, closed Sunday; café open daily, no booking.

Since the 2018 relocation, the restaurant has carried one MICHELIN Star under its current name, Cracco in Galleria, alongside three forks from Gambero Rosso and a listing among the World's 50 Best Restaurants. In the kitchen today, Cracco works with sous chef Luca Sacchi, while Christian Proserpio runs the dining room and Luca Pozzobon oversees the cellar.

03The cooking

The kitchen offers two tasting menus. La Galleria draws on Milan's own culinary tradition, while Convito Felice is framed as a more personal, reflective journey without fixed boundaries; alongside them runs an à la carte list on which Cracco and Sacchi set classic technique against costly, specific ingredients. The caramelised Russian salad, a dish that has followed Cracco across every address for years, still opens many tasting menus as a kind of signature curtain-raiser.

Saffron risotto finished with grilled bone marrow is the dish singled out as the one not to miss by the Accademia Italiana della Cucina. Veal Milanese reappears reworked with a potato terrina, and marinated egg yolk is served with green asparagus and shaved black truffle — both dishes that recur, in different guises, through successive menus at the Galleria address.

04Wine and drinks

The cellar sits in the basement, behind fir-and-glass shelving set against red lacquered walls, holding over 2,000 labels and more than 10,000 bottles, mainly Italian and French, available both to drink with dinner and to buy outright. Sommelier Luca Pozzobon curates the list, and the collection is substantial enough that MICHELIN itself flags the restaurant's wine list as a reason to visit. After the meal, the Fumoir offers a quieter coda — fine spirits and classic cocktails served at a counter that has stood since the 1970s.

05When to go and booking

The restaurant seats guests from Tuesday to Friday for lunch and dinner, and on Monday and Saturday for dinner only; it is closed all day Sunday. Reservations run through the restaurant's own booking email rather than the café, which welcomes walk-ins daily from eight in the morning until midnight but does not take bookings at all. For a lighter visit — breakfast, an aperitivo, or Cracco's own pizza — the ground-floor café is the easier route in; the first-floor restaurant is the one to book ahead for.

06The neighbourhood

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II was once known as the city's own parlour, a glass-roofed arcade that still draws more than 100,000 visitors a day past its boutiques and cafés. Cracco's building sits at the heart of that traffic, between the Duomo and La Scala, so the restaurant's windows look directly onto one of the most photographed interiors in Milan rather than onto a street.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.