Sui — Restaurant in Bologna

If you are a regular customer of Chinese food in the city center of Bologna, Italy, finding authentic Chinese restaurants there has been a challenge for many years. The cuisine has, at best, been a mediocre dining experience.

Until now.

Visiting the Ristorante Cinese Sui, located on the Via Riva di Reno, will be an absolute delight for diners who seek the best in Chinese cuisine in the city center of Bologna.

Recently opened in the previous Ristorante Bambù site, Ristorante Sui has updated its interior with a tasteful modern décor that accentuates its most precious update, its menu.

We ordered the following dishes identified by their Italian name from the current menu: Pollo Kung Pao, Gamberi sale e pepe, Sauté di Melanzane di Gusto di Yuxiang, Spaghetti di Riso con Verdure, and Sauté di Verdure di Stagione.

The Spaghetti di Riso con Verdure, a stir fried veggie and noodle dish, arrived almost immediately. The dish consisted of a superb mix of thin rice noodles, finely sliced cabbage, onions, carrots and green onions and slender pieces of fried egg. Before I could sample the dish, a redolent wave of aroma, known as “the breath of the wok”, made my mouth water. This was no ordinary Chinese stir fry. I immediately recognized a professional chef was at work in the kitchen.

A plate of Pollo Kung Pao soon followed. This is not an easy dish to make. Failure to properly combine any one of the many ingredients and the dish is a flop. Only a wok in the hands of a master can achieve the necessary culinary balance of bite size and tender pieces of chicken breast, sliced cucumber, onion and chilies mixed together with Sichuan pepper, garlic, ginger and of course, fresh peanuts. And that’s what happened. Another sumptuous offering for our pleasure.

The Gamberi sale e pepe reached our table next. Large juicy shrimp, encrusted with a thin layer of pepper, onion and salt and pepper seasoning, were so delicious that we ate all of them at once. What more can I say?

At Ristorante Sui, there is only one eggplant dish (called Aubergine in some countries), the Sauté di Melanzane di Gusto. Luscious chucks of eggplant served hot and glazed in a fine sauce of garlic, ginger and chili stole the show. This tasty veggie dish was another example of how good the Chinese cuisine is here.

The last dish, the Sauté di Verdure di Stagione, was a plate of bok choy, an authentic Chinese green vegetable. It was hard to know if it was actually in season in Italy, but as older adults we know the critical importance of including healthy green vegetables in our diet. But even this humble dish of greens sautéed in a garlic sauce sang a noteworthy tune.

Simply, Ristorante Sui not only offers exciting Szechuan style Chinese dishes on its colorful menu but it delivers an authentic Sichuan Chinese cuisine on the plate as well.

It is well worth your time...

We visited the Sui on October 16, 2023. We had sautéed fish and, at the waiter's recommendation, sweet-sour pork. Both dishes were of superior quality. The fish came in a broth with perfectly balanced taste and the fish itself had exactly the right consistency. The pork likewise had excellent seasoning, a clear notch up from the majority of Chinese restaurants in the West. The very good impression that we had from the food was nicely complemented by friendly and attentive service, a contemporary yet recognizeably Chinese interior design and modern Chinese pop music. Pricing was perfectly fine for this level of quality. We were only visiting Bologna, but if we lived here, this restaurant would become one of...

We had a wonderful dinner here! I was skeptical about authentic Chinese food in Bologna but the really delivered! The service is friendly and the food is top-notch: well-seasoned and authentic. Even the rice is really nice. Highly recommended.

We ordered: 1) fried sea bass with lemongrass and pepper — light and airy with lots of freshness from the aromatics. 2) seasonal veg which was water spinach - crunchy and savory 3) mapo tofu - so good. Lacked spiciness but the tofu was perfectly cooked and you can eat the whole dish since it wasn’t spicy 4) beef and tripe appetizer - beautiful presentation and...