La Ravioleria Sarpi

La Ravioleria Sarpi is a small dumpling shop in Milan's Chinatown that has become one of the best-loved cheap eats in the city. It opened in 2015 on Via Paolo Sarpi, the long pedestrian street at the heart of the Chinese community, and its open kitchen faces straight onto the pavement, so you can watch the team rolling, filling and folding dumplings by hand.

The idea is simple: Chinese culinary tradition made with high-quality Italian ingredients. The meat comes from the Macelleria Sirtori next door, a historic family butcher's shop that the Ravioleria's owner, Agie Zhou, took over at the end of 2022 when its previous owner retired, after years of buying meat there. Flour and eggs also come from Italian producers. The friendship between the two shops has become a well-known local story about how the neighbourhood has changed.

The menu is short. The shuijiao dumplings come in three versions: beef and leek, pork and savoy cabbage, and a vegetarian filling of seasonal vegetables chopped by hand. They are cooked to order and also sold ready to take home and cook yourself. The other speciality is the jian bing, a Beijing-style savoury crêpe filled with egg, herbs and other ingredients, which the shop says it introduced to Milan. The Ravioleria also runs cooking classes, including dumpling-making sessions.

Prices are low, and this is very much street food. There is no dining room, so most people eat standing on Via Paolo Sarpi or take their order a little way down the street. Expect a queue at lunchtime, in the early evening and at weekends; it moves steadily. The shop suits solo travellers, couples on a budget and families looking for a quick bite, and the vegetarian dumplings make it easy for non-meat eaters too.

Via Paolo Sarpi is north-west of the centre, between the Arco della Pace and the Monumental Cemetery. The nearest metro stops are Moscova on line M2 and Monumentale on line M5, and trams run along nearby streets. After eating, walk the length of Via Paolo Sarpi for Chinese grocers, tea shops and bakeries, or continue to the Monumental Cemetery, about ten minutes away on foot.