At the Antica Osteria di Ronchettino it is fried only with clarified butter for an imperial 2kg version, an elephant ear or a high version. The realm of the cutlet is Gratosoglio, where you don't eat "as it used to be". We eat a lot better
THE'Antica Osteria di Ronchettino it's really old. This seventeenth-century farmhouse on the outskirts of Gratosoglio is said to have been a post house and even Napoleon stopped there to stay overnight. In the history of Milan, over the years, the presence of a bakery is attested, then a butcher's shop and, finally, a trattoria. At the beginning of the nineties it was a bar-sandwich shop, then the activity was taken over by the Angelillo family and became the scene of cabaret shows in the golden years of the Derby and of Milanese comedy. Then twenty years ago we change direction and the Ronchettino becomes in effect a typical Milanese tavern, with a "home" kitchen made of mondeghili, of cassoeula, of Milanese tripe, risottos and the inevitable cutlet. The Antica Osteria di Ronchettino is welcoming, with many rooms and has always been well attended. He has never eaten badly, but in recent years he has eaten even better. Instead of sitting on their laurels and falling back on makeshift cooks, Patrizia and her children Alessia and Francesco chose to rely on a chef with experience in starred kitchens.
You need a chef to make tradition
"If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change". It seems the philosophy of the Leopardian memory applied by the Angelillo, because the tradition is still there, but only in appearance equal to itself. Everything is strictly home-made, the raw materials (for real) with prudence and perseverance, the cooking techniques governed by safe hands. The Milanese landscape of the so-called traditional trattorias is dominated by former dishwashers transformed into cheap cooks and historic signs that offer quaint ingredients in picturesque rooms. The Milanese paradox is that eating a good schnitzel and a good yellow risotto is almost impossible. The cutlets cook in a deep fryer, not in clarified butter, and the risotto is toasted and pre-cooked, awaiting the order. Okay so, few realize it and many prefer to pay less than eat better. That serving a chef with a name and surname to cook nerves seems a contradiction: but it is not. At the Ronchettino they have made a counter-current choice, which bears fruit (the room with 110 seats always full, for example, lunch and dinner) and the quality is palpable. The chef Federico Sisti has not changed the menu, introduced mini-portions of hunger or creative and useless suggestions. In the best way he has carried out traditional recipes for an optimal result; and this does not always mean by the procedure of the past.
The menu almost like it used to be
Warm salad of veal nervetti with borlotti beans and Tropea red onion (12 €), Mondeghili alla Milanese (14 €), Carnaroli Rice Reserve San Massimo alla Milanese creamed with roast marrow (15 €), dessert for 8 €, including classic of the house, the "Pastrocchio" by Ronchettino, a chocolate Bavarian cream with amaretti, peach puree and chantilly cream. The iconic dishes are complemented by some “off-menu” proposals – renamed Fuori Milano – made with fresh products chosen on the basis of the periodicity of the market and of their intuitions. Like a high version of the classic cutlet.
Fry like a Milanese
Fried in Milan is not made in oil, period. It is done in clarified butter, in a pan and slowly. And here at Ronchettino the fried foods are a triumph. We start with a Milanese mixed Fry of sweetbreads, brains and mondeghilli and continue with the cutlet, offered in three versions: Orecchia d'Elefante di calf (28 €), Alta with Milanese sweetbreads and mashed potatoes (24 €) or Imperial for 4 people, weighing about 2 kg and portioned directly at the table (60 €). Skeptics? Try the mondeghili: fried in clarified butter and smaller than the traditional ones, but far softer, creamy and succulent. If on the schnitzel to proclaim "the best" would trigger the war, on the mondeghili there is no doubt. The best are theirs.
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