Bussarakham, Milan

Why you should experience Bussarakham in Milan, Italy.

Bussarakham is an immersive Thai restaurant where Porta Genova's canal-side character meets Yap Eng Guan's interpretation of imperial Thai interiors, imported craftsmanship and a dining tradition established in Milan more than two decades ago.

Set along Via Valenza near Via Casale and just steps from Naviglio Grande, the restaurant occupies a Porta Genova pocket where the nineteenth-century railway terminus opens toward Milan's historic canal district. Two substantial dining rooms draw on Thai temples and palaces through dark imported woods, carved decoration, textiles and handcrafted objects assembled around a warm, low-lit interior. A large Buddha presides over the principal room, establishing a ceremonial focal point among the elaborate woodwork and decorative pieces. The raised upper dining area shifts the physical relationship with the table through cushions and low surfaces fitted above recessed wells, allowing diners to sit close to floor level with their legs extended beneath. The result is a Porta Genova restaurant whose architecture makes Thailand's decorative traditions a substantial part of the encounter before the first shared dishes arrive.

What you should know about Bussarakham.

Bussarakham is best known for Yap Eng Guan's creation of a Thai restaurant in 2004 as part of a Milanese restaurant family whose engagement with Asian cooking reaches back another generation of establishments. Yap, originally from Singapore, had already developed Singapore on Via Foppa with his wife, who came from Wenzhou in China, establishing the family in Milanese hospitality decades before Bussarakham opened. The couple subsequently expanded their work across distinct Asian traditions, with Bussarakham devoted to Thailand and Dou arriving in Piazza Napoli in 2013. That family history acquired a second generation through their Milan-born son Mauro Yap, born in 1986 and raised inside the restaurant business created by his parents. Mauro and his wife Elisa later founded Serica in 2018, recruiting Yangzhou-born chef Chang Liu after a career that had included Daniel Boulud in Beijing, Noma under René Redzepi, the 2015 Italian edition of Hell's Kitchen and the Chinese final of S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2016. Bussarakham consequently sits inside a multigenerational sequence that moved from the parents' early Milan restaurant work through dedicated Thai and Asian concepts into their son's contemporary Sino-Italian cooking. The Bussarakham name itself means “precious gem” in Thai, and the concept eventually expanded beyond the original Via Valenza restaurant through another Milan address on Via Felice Bellotti and a Rome operation on Via Emanuele Filiberto. Gambero Rosso incorporated the original restaurant into its international dining selection and awarded it the Premio Foglia in its 2025 evaluation, giving formal recognition to a project that had entered its third decade in Milan.

Tung thong begins the meal with crisp golden parcels enclosing chicken, onion and peanuts, pairing brittle pastry with a richer savory filling. Kai hor baithong takes chicken in another direction through marination and wrapping in banana leaf, whose heat releases a softer vegetal aroma around the meat, and satae kai layers spice-marinated chicken with peanut sauce. Som tam cuts through those richer preparations with green papaya and an acidic Thai dressing before tom kha gai combines chicken with coconut milk in a warmer, creamier register. Phad thai brings rice noodles, tofu, bean sprouts and egg together in the wok, with shrimp or chicken versions adding another savory layer, and khao hom mali supplies fragrant steamed jasmine rice for the curries. Khang phed ped yang pairs duck with red curry, coconut milk, pineapple and cherry tomatoes, balancing chile heat against fruit and coconut richness. Pla priew wan moves toward fish through sea bream and sweet-sour sauce, completing a sequence that travels through crisp frying, aromatic leaves, raw papaya, coconut-based soup, wok cooking and curry.

How to fold Bussarakham into your trip.

Bussarakham works as the dining endpoint for an afternoon following Porta Genova from the railway infrastructure that created the district's western gateway through the labor once supported by Naviglio Grande and the religious building that grew beside the canal over four centuries.

Begin at Stazione di Porta Genova, inaugurated on January 17, 1870 as Milano Ticinese on the railway toward Mortara and connected with the city through a new opening cut into the Spanish bastions. The station acquired its Porta Genova name in 1923 and remained the terminus for the Mortara line until rail service ended in December 2025, closing more than 155 years of operation at a site whose arrival had permanently altered the surrounding district. Continue to Vicolo dei Lavandai, where a watercourse fed by Naviglio Grande supplied the surviving washhouse used for Milanese laundry into the 1950s. The eighteenth-century Confraternita dei Lavandai originally organized male workers who knelt on wooden brellin and scrubbed clothing against stone stalls using palton, a preparation of ash, soap and soda; a twentieth-century centrifuge survives nearby from the later mechanization of the work. Conclude at Santa Maria delle Grazie al Naviglio, whose origins reach a 1556 chapel constructed for a venerated image of the Virgin before a larger Baroque church replaced it and suffered a destructive fire in 1719. Population growth prompted another reconstruction beginning in 1901 from Cesare Nava's 1900 design, and Cardinal Andrea Carlo Ferrari consecrated the new church in 1909, leaving its façade unfinished as the parish entered the modern era. The progression moves from Porta Genova's nineteenth-century railway gateway through the canal-powered labor preserved at Vicolo dei Lavandai into Santa Maria delle Grazie al Naviglio's successive rebuilding beside the water, tracing the transport, work and religious institutions that shaped Bussarakham's immediate district.

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