Why you should experience Ristorante Himalaya in Milan, Italy.
Ristorante Himalaya is a distinctive Nepalese restaurant where Portello's international residential character, Chhabi Lal Kandel's commitment to sharing Nepalese culture, a specialist Himalayan kitchen and the communal thali tradition converge through one of Milan's less commonly encountered South Asian cuisines.
Set along Via Marcantonio dal Re near Viale Certosa and just steps from Piazzale Accursio, the restaurant occupies a northwestern district where residential Milan meets the former industrial territory of Portello and the avenues leading toward the old Fiera grounds. Orange walls, timber furniture, Buddhist imagery and Nepalese decorative pieces give the compact dining room a strong visual connection with the country behind the cooking, reinforced by a staff versed in explaining unfamiliar dishes and their place within Nepalese food culture. The kitchen works across Nepalese and northern Indian traditions, yet its strongest character comes through thali, momo and other preparations that distinguish Nepal's culinary repertoire from the Indian dishes more widely established across Milan. The result is a Portello restaurant where Kandel's cultural ambition, a Nepalese specialist team and the structure of the meal itself make food a direct introduction to the country he set out to represent.
What you should know about Ristorante Himalaya.
Ristorante Himalaya is best known for Chhabi Lal Kandel turning his experience of Nepalese cooking into a Milan restaurant conceived to introduce the food and culture of Nepal to an Italian audience. Kandel developed the project after recognizing how little dedicated Nepalese cooking he encountered in Italy. His response was not simply to assemble a menu of South Asian staples. He formed a team with substantial experience in Nepalese cooking and made the country's own culinary traditions the restaurant's central concept. Himalaya emerged from the earlier Namastè Nepal operation at the same Via Marcantonio dal Re address, which was already serving momo and Nepalese dishes by 2017. The current chapter began in 2019 and retained Indo-Nepalese cooking while sharpening its specialization around Himalayan dishes and the thali system. Kandel remained one of two proprietors and became the principal named figure explaining the project publicly. Thali carries particular importance within his approach. Rice, lentils, vegetable curries and a choice of meat or vegetables arrive together as complementary components, giving Milan diners a meal structure deeply embedded in Nepalese domestic cooking. Momo provide a second cultural marker through filled dumplings that occupy a central place in Nepalese food culture. Kandel's team extended the repertoire through chow mein prepared with Nepalese spices and Himali dishes using fresh coriander and mint, then retained tandoori cooking and several Indian curries to represent the wider culinary geography surrounding Nepal. Nepalese drinks complete another part of that work through Lukla beer and Nepalese rum. By 2023, Kandel was explicitly presenting Himalaya as a vehicle for spreading Nepalese tradition and culture through cooking, four years after the restaurant's 2019 relaunch. The same proprietor remains attached to the Via Marcantonio dal Re restaurant in 2026, extending a Nepalese dining project whose roots at the address now reach back nearly a decade.
Dal bhat tarkari places steamed basmati rice beside lentils and vegetable curry, with chicken or lamb available to turn the thali into a fuller meat meal. Momo take a completely different form: steamed dumpling wrappers enclose pork, chicken or vegetables with herbs before a house dipping sauce supplies spice and acidity. Chow mein sends noodles through the pan with vegetables, chicken or pork and Nepalese seasoning, bringing a drier, high-heat preparation beside the softer dumplings and lentils. Chicken Himali cooks pieces of chicken with fresh coriander and mint in the restaurant's Nepalese sauce, and Lamb Himali transfers the same herbal foundation to richer meat. Jhinga Himali gives prawns that treatment, allowing coriander and mint to work against shellfish sweetness. Tandoori cooking develops through chicken marinated in yogurt and spices before entering the clay oven. Hariyali tikka uses spinach and mint in the marinade, then malai tikka changes the texture through cream and coconut flour. Butter chicken takes tandoori-cooked meat into a sauce of cream, tomato and spices, and shahi korma combines chicken with cream and cashews. Gulab jamun closes with cardamom-scented syrup, and khir brings rice into sweetened milk for a softer finish. Lukla beer and Nepalese rum preserve the Nepalese thread through the drinks program after a meal built around dumplings, lentils, rice, herbs, curry and tandoor heat.
How to fold Ristorante Himalaya into your trip.
Ristorante Himalaya works as the meal anchor for an afternoon tracing northwestern Milan from a Renaissance country residence through a medieval Carthusian foundation into Piero Bottoni's postwar reconstruction of the city from wartime rubble.
Begin at Villa Simonetta, whose origins reach to the end of the fifteenth century when Gualtiero Bascapè, chancellor to Ludovico il Moro, acquired agricultural land from Ospedale Maggiore for a country residence. Ferrante Gonzaga acquired the property in 1547 and commissioned Domenico Giunti to enlarge it into a U-shaped residence with lateral wings, a formal façade and extensive fresco decoration. The Simonetta family took possession in 1555, and the villa later passed through radically different uses as a cholera hospital, candle factory, mechanical workshop and barracks before wartime bombing and a restoration begun after Milan acquired it in 1959. Continue to Certosa di Garegnano, founded on September 19, 1349 by Giovanni Visconti, archbishop and ruler of Milan, as a rural Carthusian monastery surrounded by the Bosco della Merlata. Construction followed Visconti's donation of houses, fields, woodland and water rights to support the monks, and the church was consecrated in 1367. Petrarch knew the monastery during his Milan years, and the complex later accumulated major artistic interventions as it developed across Renaissance and Baroque Milan before suppression of the Carthusian community in 1783. Conclude at Monte Stella, conceived by Piero Bottoni in 1947 as part of QT8 for the eighth Triennale. A quarry intended for a lake had filled with debris from buildings destroyed during Allied bombing, leading Bottoni to redesign the site as an artificial hill fifty meters high. The park reached completion around 1960, and Bottoni dedicated the hill to his wife, sculptor Stella Korcynska. The progression moves from Bascapè and Gonzaga's Renaissance country residence through Visconti's Carthusian foundation into Bottoni's conversion of wartime destruction into a new urban landscape, tracing six centuries of change across the territory surrounding Ristorante Himalaya.
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