Milan’s Chinese food scene didn’t start with hotpot queues, bubble tea cups and viral bao or dumpling shops. Long before Paolo Sarpi became a weekend food ritual, a different generation of Chinese restaurants was already here — opening quietly, building regulars, and teaching an entire city and generation how to eat Chinese food. Many of them also gave birth to something distinctly Milanese: Italian-Chinese cuisine, a category worth understanding on its own terms. Read our piece on Milan’s Italianized Chinese food.
Sadly, many historic names didn’t make it — La Pagoda, which opened in 1962 and is credited as Milan’s very first Chinese restaurant; La Muraglia, the Porta Venezia pioneer that Carmen’s mother opened in 1975 before Carmen went on to found Giardino di Giada. Behind them, countless family trattorias that opened, fed the city for a decade or two, and closed without leaving much trace behind.
The restaurants below are the survivors. They endured while most didn’t, and they’re still serving Milan today.
Mandarin 2
Type: Classic Chinese cuisine, Cantonese and traditional dishes, wine list
Address: Via Garofalo, 22a
Est.: 1974
The story of Mandarin 2 begins in 1974, when King Sing Cheng — previously chef at La Pagoda — opened the first location on Via Bellotti in Porta Venezia. In 1979, alongside his wife Carmela, of Sicilian origin, the restaurant moved to Città Studi under the Mandarin 2 name, eventually settling at its current Via Garofalo address in 1992.
Now run by Chunyi, the founder’s grandson, Mandarin 2 has been serving Chinese cuisine for three generations, with careful attention to ingredient selection and a wine list that sets it apart from virtually every other Chinese restaurant in the city. Elegant without being precious, and consistent in a way that only decades of practice produce.
Lon Fon
Type: Classic Cantonese cuisine, handmade dim sum and fresh noodles
Address: Via Lazzaretto, 10
Est.: 1978
It was 1978 when Rita Kam left Mandarin 1 to open Lon Fon on Via Lazzaretto, a side street off Viale Tunisia in Porta Venezia, and bring her family’s Cantonese home cooking to the table. Her father had been among the very first Chinese chefs in Milan, working at the legendary La Pagoda.
The two dining rooms she opened then are the same ones operating today — same spaces, same approach, same commitment to doing things properly. Decades on, the kitchen has maintained a steady course of simplicity, consistency and tradition. Pasta and dumplings are still made by hand every morning, just as they were almost five decades ago.
Ta Hua
Type: Hong Kong-style cuisine, dim sum, seafood
Address: Via Gustavo Fara, 15
Est.: c. 1979–1982
Founded around forty years ago by Mr. Shou and his wife Sucin, Ta Hua has always specialized in Hong Kong and southern Chinese cuisine. The focus has always been dim sum done seriously: fresh, handmade daily in an open kitchen, spanning shrimp, pork, lobster, scallop and vegetable fillings.
The interior follows a minimalist Feng Shui concept with stone and wood, decorated with traditional details including a painting by Fan Zen. Standout dishes include turbot in crust with vegetables, beef fillet in the chef’s pot, shrimp with ginger and asparagus, and the restaurant’s own pastry specialties. One of the more complete Hong Kong dining experiences in the city, and consistently packed.
Giardino di Giada
Type: Cantonese and imperial Chinese cuisine, Sichuan specialties
Address: Via Palazzo Reale, 5
Est.: 1980
Everything began on an exact date: 7 July 1980. Carmen — who had arrived in Milan from Wenzhou just the year before — opened Giardino di Giada steps from the Duomo, taking over a space where an Italian restaurant had previously operated. The decision was bold: central Milan, a formal setting, Chinese cuisine. It was a natural extension of her family’s legacy — her mother had opened La Muraglia in 1975, widely considered the first restaurant in Milan run by Chinese from mainland China.
Now in its fifth decade, Giardino di Giada claims the best traditions of Chinese cuisine and has become a precise reference point for the city. The kitchen leans on recipes with centuries of history behind them — including the Pancetta del Poeta, a braised pork dish over 800 years old — alongside a fresh steamed sea bass in Cantonese style with ginger, and Peking duck served daily. Today, Carmen’s son Gigi Chin manages the restaurant after trading an engineering career for the family business.
Hua Cheng
Type: Chinese home cooking, handmade fresh pasta, stir-fries
Address: Via Giordano Bruno, 13
Est.: 1980s
Hua Cheng is the kind of Chinese trattoria everyone knows exists but nobody can ever remember the address of. Open just off Via Paolo Sarpi well before the street became famous, it built its reputation on handmade fresh noodles at a time when that was not yet the point of differentiation it would later become. It sits on a side street in the Chinatown grid — small, unassuming, and consistently full.
The name literally means “Chinese city”. It’s the kind of place where food does the talking rather than the decor. Hand-pulled noodles are among the standout dishes, alongside ginger and spring onion veal, griddle duck, kung pao chicken and century egg. Expect to share tables, wait in line without a reservation, and leave very full for very little money.
Kota Radja
Type: Chinese cuisine, Indonesian specialties, Japanese section
Address: Piazzale Baracca, 6
Est.: mid-1980s
From the mid-1980s to today, Kota Radja has been one of the few reliable constants in Milan’s Chinese restaurant landscape — a fixture in a residential neighborhood far from the Chinatown circuit, resisting every trend that swept through the city around it. The name means “House of the King” in Chinese — a reference that suits the setting: elaborate carved interiors, decorative panels depicting ancient Chinese history, and an atmosphere that makes the place feel genuinely distinct.
The kitchen pulls from multiple regional traditions — Cantonese, northern Chinese, and what reads almost as Indonesian in some preparations — reflecting the layered waves of Chinese migration to Milan over the decades. It remains the kind of neighborhood anchor that bigger, trendier cities quietly build their food culture on.
Yu Zhou
Type: Cantonese cuisine, Sichuan dishes, Thai specialties, teppanyaki
Address: Via Carlo Ravizza, 9
Est.: 1986
Yu Zhou has been open since 1986, offering carefully prepared Cantonese dishes alongside Sichuan specialties, Thai selections and a teppanyaki grill — one of the more complete Asian dining setups in the city for its era. Located near De Angeli in the Ravizza neighborhood, it sits outside the usual Chinese restaurant geography of central Milan and Chinatown.
The restaurant offers two large dining rooms — one in a traditional style, one more modern with the teppanyaki station — plus a terrace for outdoor dining from May through September. Nearly four decades of operation in the same location tells its own story: not glamorous, not destination dining, but exactly the kind of neighborhood anchor that genuinely matters.
Jin Yong
Type: Traditional Chinese cuisine, handmade noodles, Chinatown classics
Address: Via Paolo Sarpi, 2
Est.: late 1980s
Jin Yong sits at the entrance of Via Paolo Sarpi — one of the most visible addresses in Milan’s Chinatown — and has been part of the street’s identity for decades. The exact founding date is difficult to pin down with certainty, which is true of many historic Chinatown restaurants where ownership and registration histories don’t always align with when a kitchen actually started operating.
The menu covers a broad range of Chinese specialties, with fresh ingredients and takeaway service among its consistent strengths. The restaurant is open daily for lunch, dinner and aperitivo before 7pm, positioned as a casual everyday option in the heart of Chinatown. It has since expanded with a second location near the Duomo, which speaks to the loyalty it generated over time.
Jubin
Type: Chinese, Japanese and Thai cuisine, large-format dining
Address: Via Paolo Sarpi, 11
Est.: 1990s
Founded in the 1990s by Chinese entrepreneur Zhou Bin, Jubin quickly became one of the most important restaurants in Milan for experiencing authentic Chinese cuisine in a well-run, fast-service environment. Its multi-room layout — Chinese-style on the upper floor, Japanese at the Paolo Sarpi entrance, more stripped-back and authentic along the Via Bramante side — reflects a restaurant that grew organically over time, adding styles and spaces as its audience grew.
At its peak, Jubin was the name that came up whenever someone asked for a reliable Chinese in the city. Its menu covering Chinese, Thai and Japanese cuisine made it a point of reference not just for Western diners but for the Chinese community itself. The quality has fluctuated over the years, but the footprint it built on Paolo Sarpi helped define what large-scale Chinatown dining looked like in Milan before the current generation of restaurants arrived.
Final Verdict
The history of Chinese restaurants in Milan isn’t a tidy timeline — it’s a story of families, migrations, neighborhood anchors and slow cultural negotiation. These nine restaurants, all open before 2000, helped build the foundations of Chinese dining in a city that is now one of the most interesting Asian food destinations in Italy.
Some of them are still excellent. Some have coasted. All of them were here first, serving Milan plate by plate, decade by decade, long before it became a content opportunity. By writing about them, we’re doing something small but necessary: making sure their place in the city’s food memory doesn’t get buried under the next wave of openings.
Have you tried any of these spots yet? Let us know your opinion, and do not forget to bookmark chinatownmilano.it for more Asian food stories, restaurant guides, and hidden spots around the city and follow us on social media @chinatownmilano.it.