La Colubrina
€€ Pizza, Italian, Vegan
Via Felice Casati 5
20124 Milano
Italy

I was in Milan for less than a day and we decided to eat at La Colubrina as it was one of the very few Italian restaurants here that cater to vegans. I have to say that it is probably appropriate that one of the best vegan-friendly Italian restaurants I’ve ever been to is in Italy. This one is run by all women and it’s got a very relaxed and comfortable vibe. Dishes take 45 minutes to prepare so it kinda needs to be comfortable.

Although I learned Milan is more known for risotto than pasta, my spouse’s Milanese sister made us vegan risotto earlier in the day, so we were pretty risotto-ed out by the time we got here for dinner at 10pm. At 10pm it was still busy, but definitely dying down as it’s a family restaurant. Dinner is late but not too late! I decided to try very basic pasta and gnocchi dishes here. My fear about trying new dishes at vegan restaurants is my lack of realization about the portion sizes, usually lack thereof.

Almost every time I order a vegan thing I have never heard of, it is shaped in a tiny decorative torte form that takes less than three minutes to fully consume. So I have a type of psychic pain and avoidance now for ordering anything new, sadly. But nonetheless, I cannot begin to tell you how un-basic the pasta and gnocchi dishes are. The green gnocchi is fresh and comes in a white cashew-based gorgonzola cheese sauce. The zucchini-based pasta comes with I believe an avocado-based sauce and artichoke or some type of green that usually tastes not-so-good raw, but tastes incredibly good prepared. There was ‘cheese’ on top of this one, which I believe was nutritional yeast.

All in all, it was very un-Italian of us to split three first plates (the bowl on top of the second plate) and get no second plate or ‘antipasti’ so shame on us for not getting the other plates to balance out the meal. However, even with the lack of balance, I am incredibly happy to have come here for the very limited amount of time we had in Milan. The server was friendly, the food was incredible and the atmosphere was great. This is the first time in a long time that I ate out at an Italian restaurant. It’s great to eat Italian food that’s unlimited to pasta with some variant of tomato sauce or pesto and olive oil like every other Italian restaurant I’ve been to over the years.

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2/7/2018