Our Story

There’s a smell you never forget. The risotto simmering slowly, the ossobuco melting in its sauce, the freshly baked bread that fills an entire room. For us, that smell has a name: Grandma Emilia.

Viale Padova, the 1970s

Milan was a different city back then. Factory workers, craftsmen, shopkeepers — people who worked hard and who, at lunchtime, needed a place to sit down, catch their breath, and eat something real.

On Viale Padova, Grandma Emilia had created exactly that place. Hers was a latteria, one of those small Milanese kitchen shops that were everywhere back then: a few tables, no pretence, just good food, generous portions, and that quintessentially Milanese ability to make people feel at home even when they were far from it.

Her recipes didn’t come from books. She carried them inside her, passed down from hand to hand, kitchen to kitchen. And every day she put them back on the stove for whoever needed them.

Corrado’s Dream

That fire never went out. At the end of the 1990s, Corrado — Emilia’s son, my father — decided to take that flame and carry it further. Together with other partners, he opened four restaurants between Piazza Duomo and the Brera district: the heart of Milan, the place where the city shows itself to the world.

Among them was the Hosteria Tipica La Cadrega — a name already entirely Milanese, already entirely ours. For over a decade, Corrado kept alive that tradition of cooking and hospitality he had first seen born in his mother’s kitchen. The scale changed, the size changed; the soul did not.

Back to the Beginning

Then it was my turn. I’m Marco, and when I took over this restaurant I already knew what I wanted to do: go back. Back to Grandma Emilia, back to her recipes, back to that no-frills Milanese cooking that truly nourishes.

I changed the name — from Hosteria to Alla Cadrega - Trattoria Bistrot — but not to turn the page. To write a new one, staying true to everything that came before. I brought back the traditional dishes, the ones Emilia used to cook for the factory workers of Viale Padova, and put them back at the centre of the table.

Because after three generations, the answer is always the same: the most important thing is to sit down together and eat well.

We can’t wait to see you at Alla Cadrega!