Why you should experience Banaras in Milan, Italy.
Banaras is an intimate Indian restaurant where Porta Romana's historic approach to Central Milan meets the cooking traditions of northern India, a concept inspired by Varanasi and a contemporary treatment of tandoor, spice and slow fermentation.
Set along Via Orti near Corso di Porta Romana and just steps from San Pietro dei Pellegrini, the restaurant occupies a compact historic quarter shaped by former religious institutions, gardens and streets that once carried travelers toward the southeastern gates of Milan. Saturated red, green, blue and ochre establish the interior's visual character, using Indian color references within a contemporary room free of elaborate ornamental staging. Closely arranged tables intensify the small dining room, turning shared dishes and breads into a central part of the physical encounter. Two levels extend the operation vertically, with warm lighting and artwork maintaining continuity between the ground-floor room and the dining area above. The result is a Porta Romana restaurant whose compact architecture and concentrated color provide a modern setting for the breadth of northern Indian cooking.
What you should know about Banaras.
Banaras is best known for translating the culinary traditions associated with Varanasi and northern India into a Milan restaurant founded in 2021. Its name adopts the historic English rendering of Varanasi, connecting the project directly with the ancient city on the Ganges and establishing the geographical premise that continues through its cooking. The restaurant developed that premise around fourteen signature spices and slow fermentation extending to 48 hours, giving spice preparation and time-defined dough work structural roles within the kitchen. Tandoor cooking forms another major component, applying charcoal heat to marinated meats, vegetables and breads across a broad repertoire. By 2022, the kitchen had attracted attention for the unusual breadth of its northern Indian cooking, spanning a dozen bread preparations alongside vegetarian dishes, tandoor specialties and regional curries. Identità Golose subsequently selected Banaras for its 2023 group of eleven lesser-known Milan addresses, singling out its careful treatment of Indian cooking and extensive plant-based repertoire. Chicken Peshwari emerged within that recognition through its cashew-based sauce, adding a specific northern preparation to the restaurant's growing association with regional Indian food in Milan. The operation has continued developing the Varanasi connection through dishes such as its signature biryanis and Banarsi preparations, preserving regional reference points as the restaurant has matured beyond its opening phase.
Tandoori chicken begins with yogurt and a fourteen-spice mixture before charcoal heat chars the exterior and concentrates the marinade around the meat. The Banarsi Platter Tikka extends the tandoor across several preparations, allowing smoke, spice and direct heat to emerge through different proteins and marinades within one course. Malai kofta moves in another direction through cheese dumplings surrounded by a smooth cashew-and-tomato sauce, setting a soft interior against the richness of ground nuts. Chicken Peshwari deepens the cashew register through poultry and a dense sauce, then biryani separates spiced rice into chicken, shrimp, Hyderabadi lamb and vegetable versions. Cheese naan and garlic naan arrive from high-temperature baking with blistered surfaces and softer interiors, making bread part of the sequence beyond its role as an accompaniment. Pakora introduces fried batter and crisp vegetables before kulfi closes the meal through a cold, dense dairy texture, moving the table across charcoal, spice, nuts, fermentation, frying and frozen dessert.
How to fold Banaras into your trip.
Banaras works as the dinner endpoint for an afternoon following the southern historic center through medieval pilgrimage infrastructure, a Renaissance charitable garden and the elaborate burial architecture created for Milan's principal hospital.
Begin at San Pietro dei Pellegrini, founded in 1344 by the priest Ambrogio Varese as the chapel of an adjoining hospice serving pilgrims traveling the Via Emilia toward Rome, with Bernabò Visconti among its major benefactors. The hospice admitted travelers for two days, placing religious assistance directly beside one of Milan's important outward routes; the surviving church retains its original terracotta portal and traces of a medieval building later absorbed by surrounding construction. Continue to Giardino della Guastalla, commissioned by Paola Ludovica Torelli, Countess of Guastalla, as part of the charitable college she established for young women and completed in 1555. A later Baroque fishpond replaced the original body of water, Luigi Cagnola contributed the neoclassical temple, and Milan acquired the complex in 1938 before Renzo Gerla and Gaetano Fassi reorganized it for public use, converting a secluded institutional garden into one of the city's oldest public green spaces. Conclude at Rotonda della Besana, begun in 1695 as the Foppone dell'Ospedale Maggiore after the Ca' Granda required additional burial capacity, with San Michele ai Nuovi Sepolcri and the surrounding portico developing across the following decades. Francesco Croce participated in the lobed cemetery enclosure completed in 1731 with financial support from silk merchant Giambattista Annone; after Austrian reforms ended its funerary role, Luigi Cagnola later devised an unrealized Napoleonic plan to convert the complex into a pantheon for the Regno Italico. The progression moves from a medieval hospice serving long-distance pilgrims through Torelli's sixteenth-century charitable foundation into the Ospedale Maggiore's Baroque response to death and burial, tracing three institutions that transformed hospitality, welfare and care across the streets surrounding Porta Romana.
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