Meet Jaclyn DeGiorgio, a Milan-Based Food Writer and Host of the Milanophiles Podcast

Issue #52

Sep 28, 2023

Jaclyn DeGiorgio likes to call Milan “Italy’s best unkept secret.” She would know. She left New York more than a decade ago and, after a year in Rome, has been living in Milan for nine and a half years. As a freelance journalist with bylines in La Cucina Italiana, the Financial Times, Condé Nast Traveler, and other publications, she loves to shed light on her oft-misunderstood hometown. That’s why she started the blog, A Signorina in Milan, and launched a podcast called the Milanophiles. She also leads food tours in Milan.

I met Jaclyn a couple of years ago on a wine-themed press trip through Emilia Romagna. Since then, she has generously shared her restaurant recommendations and travel tips for Milan and beyond. In addition to being a Milan expert, she has traveled extensively throughout northern Italy and has a wealth of travel tips and insight about Liguria, Lake Como, Piedmont, and elsewhere. As she is recording the second season of the Milanophiles, I called her to chat about all things Milan. I’m thrilled to share her insights as part of my series of interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs in Italy.

When did you visit Milan for the first time? Why did you decide to move there?

I visited Milan for the first time in January 2012. I came to Italy for four weeks to travel: two weeks with my best friend, two weeks on my own. We started in Milan and I just really loved the city from the instant we got here. After two weeks with my friends, I decided to go back to Milan for four days. And I had the best time here. I met up with some contacts I had from work. And I just felt like I belonged here.

But when I wanted to move to Italy, I wasn't sure what to do, because I really loved Rome as well. And I did have some friends and contacts in Rome. I thought that would be the best place for me since I knew people there. Then when I was living in Rome, I was coming to Milan regularly because the Frecciarossa was just under three hours. And the more time I spent here, I made more friends in the food world and it just felt like it was where I should be.

Was that trip your first trip to Italy? You have Italian roots, right?

I had traveled in Italy before, but I had always done it in shorter trips here and there because most of my Calabrian relatives on my father's side of the family are all in the U.S. My grandparents came over here in maybe the ‘30s or the early ‘40s and my father was born here. They were first generation. So they came from this generation that was encouraged to blend in and be American. So unfortunately, my father stopped speaking Italian at home and he doesn't speak it anymore.

There was a lot of that kind of emigration from Italy to the U.S., I think especially in the post-war era, and sadly, a lot of them felt the pressure to become American and then lost the language. Right?

I think so. I guess because kids can be mean and whatnot. My father's birth name was Giacomo, for instance. And he was Jack. All of them anglicized their names, and they were encouraged to do what they could to fit in with the American style.

So how did you learn Italian?

I took classes at a school in New York called Parliamo Italiano. It was every Saturday for three hours. And it was helpful, but I feel like I was a perpetual beginner with it, because I didn't really have anyone to practice with after those three hours on Saturday. So I would go and immerse myself and it felt good, but then I felt like the following week, I would always go back to where I was, and I was kind of stagnating with it. But it really was a great way to build the foundation with some of the grammatical rules.

And then when I moved to Rome, I took classes for a few months at a language school. It was five days a week, three hours a day. And that was really helpful as well, but I think the best way to learn it is just to try speaking it. And once you get a foundation of it, just keep practicing, and put yourself out there and be willing to be humbled because it's very humbling when you're learning it.

When did you start your blog A Signorina In Milan?

When I was in Rome, I had a blog under another name, but then I just sort of changed the name to Milan, but I still reused a lot of that content. So I started it in 2016 as a way to write about the city because I love it and I think it doesn't get the attention it deserves. It was a little love letter to Milan and I also used it to recount some nuances of my expat life.

I totally agree with you about that. I think that Milan sometimes gets a bad rap, but I also love it. It's such a great, dynamic city. And I always find tons of inspiration in the design world and culture. But I'm curious, what do you love most about Milan?

I think the problem is that it doesn't fit the mold for what most people think of Italy, so they're quick to dismiss it. When you look at its fellow Fashion Week cities—New York, London and Paris—you think of New York as New York, not as the United States; you think of London as London, not as England; and you think of Paris as Paris, not as France. You need to think of Milan as Milan and not Italy and think of it as an international city.

One of the things I love about it is all of the international food offerings. And when people come here if you were to recommend a Japanese restaurant to someone they would say, “Why would I have Japanese food? I'm in Italy,” but if you were to recommend a Japanese restaurant to someone in one of the other Fashion Week cities, everyone would jot it down and be like, “Oh, I'll make sure I go there.”

What I love most about Milan is that it's a bustling cosmopolitan city. And not as in your face as the other cities are. You can just be walking and then suddenly you look at a tiny detail on a building that you might have walked past so many times and you've never noticed that little detail before. Because it's such a design forward city. It's all about the details. It's so discreet.

I think people expect the narrow cobblestone streets and the faded buildings, which is more of the Mediterranean part of southern Italy. But northern Italy is different. And it's beautiful for its own characteristics, right?

Before I had even been here, there were people who told me, “Oh, if you're studying Italian, and you want to live in Italy, you should live in Milan.” And I repeated what so many people told me about Milan, like, “Why would I want to go there? It's gray. There's nothing to see but the Duomo,” but none of that is true.

There's a lot happening here, you just need to seek it out. I think it's a matter of knowing the right people and you kind of have to experience it in a way that you're living in it. That doesn't mean you need to live here to appreciate it. You just have to approach it a little differently than the other cities.

I think that as a visitor, you can almost drop into Milan and feel like a local more easily in a way because it's not like Rome, where you go to the monuments and you're just surrounded by tourists. Milan feels a little bit more like a city for locals.

The thing about Milan is, especially if you're around here on a summer weekend when the Milanese go away and let's just say you walk down Corso Venezia, arrive near the Duomo. And on Corso Venezia, pretty much no one is there, but then the closer you get to the Duomo, you start to see more and more people. And then you go inside the Galleria and it's mobbed. And then you come out on the other side, once you pass La Scala or Brera or the castle, then it's crowded again.

Everyone's concentrated in one spot, which is a shame because you miss so much of the city that way, whether you just want to look at architecture, or sit at a cool cafe, because there are so many cool places where you can have specialty coffee—not just the old school coffee places that you think of when you think of Italy, but there are places you can go and sit for a little bit and have an Aeropress or or a flat white with almond milk or oat milk and just sit there and talk and relax. Like I know I like to do when I go to Paris or London and experience that sort of local life. I think a lot of people don't get to experience that when they're here. They just do some of the touristy things.

And I think on the food front, people come here and all they want to eat is Italian food, but there's also a lot happening. Good chefs are cooking up a new cucina italiana that's very innovative. Maybe they've worked abroad or at some of the best restaurants in the world and they come back to Milan and are trying to do something different. I think it's cool that people should eat that when they’re here, but people come here wanting Italy so they want to have dishes that are familiar to them in general.

You mentioned your food tours. Can you tell me a bit about what those are like?

Yeah, so on the food tours, it's a little more in line with tradition. And one of the reasons for that is because I do the tour in the historic center. It's hard to find places in one neighborhood offering the things that I think really encompass the culinary landscape of the city.

So we start out at a bakery, and I have them try sweets that are really typical if not to Milan, then at least to Lombardia or Piedmont or the north in general, maybe Liguria or something. I don't want to bring people to places where they're going to try Sicilian arancini or panzerotti from Puglia or the fried pizza from Naples, all of which I love. I know you can make a case for how that represents the landscape of the city, when the immigrants from the south came and opened food establishments and whatnot, but I think it's nicer to stick a little closer to tradition.

When I do these tours, there's not really a place in the center where you can have contemporary food that's open during that time. But usually when people ask me for restaurant recommendations, I always suggest some of them.

So what are the must-try culinary specialties from Milan or from Lombardia that you think people should taste when they're visiting Milan?

For the classic food? There's risotto alla milanese, costoletta alla milanese, and mondeghili—the meatballs. There's ossobuco, too, which is really famous. A lot of times you can find that with risotto. Another dish is riso al salto. It's a rice pancake made from leftover risotto.

Not to shamelessly self-promote my podcast, but on an episode of my podcast about contemporary milanese cuisine, I discussed how it's hard to find the restaurants that are offering these traditional dishes. You can find more sushi restaurants in Milan than the old school trattorias where you can have this stuff. So I think it's a real treat.

I remember that episode of the podcast and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the podcast too. What inspired you to do that? And are you planning to record more episodes?

Yes, I'm actually starting to record the second season. I'm hoping to launch it this fall, or if not, winter for sure before the new year. So part of the reason I decided to start doing that is because I love Milan so much. And I wanted to start talking to people and celebrating the city because it doesn't get the attention it deserves and people have these preconceived ideas of Italy. And even editors are really lukewarm on Milan. So it's a platform to tell the stories that I'd like to tell and highlight what's happening here.

What are some of your favorite places to eat in Milan?

I think if you're gonna go to an old school Milanese trattoria, Trattoria Masueli San Marco is really nice.

And I'm also a really big fan of Da Martino. It's an old school trattoria that's been there from the ‘50s and is still in the same family. What I love about it is the menu changes pretty much every day and they use quality ingredients, a lot of Slow Food ingredients. They don’t serve a lot of the traditional dishes, but the one classic they always have is the costoletta—and their version is excellent.

I always suggest going there to have it because they include a piece of the bone marrow that you actually have to pick up and eat with your hands. The first time I was there, I tried cutting into it with a knife and a fork and it just was not happening. And then I saw someone else at another table pick it up and bite into it and get the marrow out. So I think that's a lot of fun.

And I also love Ratanà. The menu there really encompasses the spirit of the city. I often say that Milan is a juxtaposition of the old and the new, and you'll find that on the menu there. There is a section of classic evergreen dishes where you'll find the risotto alla milanese, which is one of the best in the city, but there's also a lot of contemporary food. Or rather, it's contemporary, but inspired by local flavors and by tradition.

You'll always find, for instance, a tartare of a lake fish. When it opened, what it became really famous for was sourcing lake fish for the menu and not using seafood. I mean, there's nothing wrong with seafood, but the idea was just to do local Lombard or Piemonte cuisine. You're not going to find seafood on the menu unless it's baccalà. Milan's inland and that's why baccalà and anchovies are rooted a bit in tradition, especially the baccalà because it's preserved and it came from the sea. So that really is old school Milanese tradition.

Are there Milanese desserts or sweets that people should try while they're there?

Yes, there's the panettone, which is the typical treat of Christmas, but now a lot of places have been offering it year-round because pastry chefs feel like it is the signature product of Milan. Pavé has it year-round.

Another thing that’s very popular here, though it originated in Piemonte, is the cannoncini, nicknamed the cannoli of the north. They’re little puff pastries with cream inside and then they're sort of sealed with sponge cake crumbs. And the other dessert I love is the sachertorte. It's Austrian, but because Milan was under Austrian rule, the Austrians brought the desert here. It’s a chocolate cake with apricot jam and then a chocolate fondant icing and it makes me so happy. If you go to Pavé, there’s a really nice single portion of it.

One of my favorite bakeries is Marcello Rapisardi’s Pasticceria. He’s so brilliant and he makes a nice sachertorte as well. He also makes these really playful alternative chocolates that have fillings like a carbonara filling and one with balsamic vinegar that’s amphora-aged. And he has some classic stuff as well, but his bakery is a fun one to hit up for some sweets.

I remember hearing about that on the podcast. I want to wrap up, but what do you think is the best time of year to visit Milan?

I think May is always nice and then September, October. But you never know with climate change. I would never tell people June, July, August because it’s way too hot. April is nice too, but that’s Design Week, so that’s when the hotels are at their peak prices.

But I’m also a big fan of places in the real off-season. If someone were to come here during the winter months—November, December, January, February—I don’t think it’s super cold. Coming from New York where winter is just brutal, I don’t think the Milanese winter is bad. But I would say late January is better because sometimes places close for Christmas vacation through January 6.

Meet Jaclyn DeGiorgio, a Milan-Based Food Writer and Host of the Milanophiles Podcast

Issue #52

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