La Colubrina — Restaurant in Milan

An absolutely underrated, hidden GEM. This is what food is all about. If you're looking for an innovative, yet traditional, homely and healthy food experience (stress on the word experience) you have to come here. It feels exaggerated to use so many adjectives to describe something as a humble family restaurant, but there is so much dedication and thought behind each dish, it doesn't feel right to leave it out of the description.

Innovation and Culture. Two words that seem to contradict themselves but are what brings any culinary experience to the next level. Adding the word "vegan" to Italian cuisine is not so easy. A country with such a strong food history and culture is bound to be skeptical about something as big as removing all animal derived ingredients. In this little restaurant Consuelo and Franca have designed dishes that are an ode to traditional home cooked Italian food with "just" plants. Textures and tastes that you could have never expected from a humble cashew nut or chickpea. Innovation is about doing things better, learning from the past to make a better future. This is creating culture. Keeping a beautiful culture alive, with a new philosophy of compassion at its core.

Healthy. For us, and for the planet. All the dishes are made with whole, seasonal ingredients, fresh and organic with little to no food miles. Respecting natures cycles and seasons, promoting diversity and regenerative practices to keep our soil alive. The flour used is either whole, buckwheat, chickpea or lentil flour or (in the case of pastries) almond. Nutritionally speaking, this is a big leap from using white wheat flour which is seen in the majority of the food sector today.

Experience. This encompasses the music, the service and the ambience. Each hit the spot. It's difficult to find a restaurant today with music that is coherent with the space. It is clear that they have not just put the "Spotify to 100" over here. This is greatly appreciated when looking for a comfortable space to share a meal and a conversation. The music is pleasant and not overbearing. The ambience is warm and friendly. People of all ages and profile (even a discreet celebrity, in tonight's case) come here to enjoy the menu and their friends company. The service is on point. Both Consuelo and Franca (Mother and daughter, chefs and owners) are in the kitchen and by the tables, alongside the lovely waitress. This gives a feel of dedication and passion that is rarely found in large cities, such as Milan, today.

In a meal of few dishes and few ingredients, I experienced a wild, complex, and delicious sensory experience. This food, with this philosophy, made with such passion and love, deserves to be known. I hope these two incredible women get the acknowledgement and recognition they deserve because the work they are doing here is truly special.

All I have to say...

Me and my partner are both Vegan and we decided to dine in at La colubrina as we were very impressed with an all woman run vegan restraunt and the reviews seemed to be nice too. Our experience was a little different. We didn't have a reservation and understood that we would have to wait a little to get a table to dine in and were okay with it. We arrived at the restraunt at 8:40ish and were given a table in like 10 minutes of wait however the service was really really slow. We ordered a pasta and a pizza with a chickpea dish as a starter. The starter tasted nice. However the pizza and pasta were average tasting but the price we paid didnt live up to the taste. I understand taste can be subjective but i dont think slow service can be subjective. We arrived at the restaurant around 8:45 and got our food around 10:10ish which is a huge wait time for someone wanting to have dinner. The staff was really nice and greeted us with great hospitality. The girl working in the front was basically running the whole front office taking guests and serving them which is commendable. However I do think more staff were needed in front and that's why the service was slow and i dont really know why the kitchen took almost an hour if not more to serve us our food. We wanted to have desserts in the place but decided not to as it was getting late and ate our food extremly quickly and left around 10:30 after getting our food served at 10:10. Great people but food and portion size can be better ( my boyfriend had to have cup noodles after reaching home to not sleep hungry).

Post response from the restraunt: Saying that the wait time of more than an hour didnt happen is simply a lie. We have proof of when our food arrived as we clicked pictures during these time. So wait of more than an hour did happen ( never said we waited for hour and a half, so please dont exxagerate the timings we are telling) i have attached more images showing timings when our food was delivered)

Posting things later online without saying anything on the spot does help restraunts if they want to improve their service and food. Some people are just not comfortable to express themselves and their discontent on the spot and hence use online means to convey their thoughts. Its on restraunt if they want to improve with them or not.

Please check your previous 1,2 star reviews and they all say the same things and please...

La Colubrina was a huge disappointment before we even sat down at a table. We made a reservation on google, but they had no records of our reservation. All the records were handwrittwn. The person annoyingly shoved us to a corner seat, obviously not interested in finding our reservation or showing us any basic courtesy.

We looned through the "english" menu bit this was only half the relevant information about the food.

For example, the beers were not listed according to type and our waitresss did not know what the beers were and was not interested in finding out. She knew that one beer was an ipa, but nothing else. So i ordered the sparkling water rather than throw a dart at the beer menu. My wife chose a random beer, which turned out to be a very hoppy pilsner.

The staff were very friendly and nice towards some of the italian patrons, but there were a bunch of us foreigners, and we just rolled our eyes towards each other.

Oh, and the sink in the vathroom didnt have water, or the faucet had some unfathomable mechanism.

As for the food itself, i had the smoked seitan, and the presentation on that was beautiful; it came in a smoke filled container which was lifted. The seitan itself was soft and kind of bland. There were red beets and some broccoli, which were good, and it sat on a bed of yellow sauce of unknown i gredients.

My wife had a pizza, and it was a typical wholemeal spelt pizza. We were hoping for a good vegan italian pizza, and only having options for these alternate flours was disappointing. The best part was the lentil mozzarella pizza topping, which was quite tasty and made the pizza work. The oven roasted potatoes were fine, exactly what you would make yourself with a little oil and salt.

Overall i would steer clear, unless you specifically want the whole spelt or gluten...