Milan / Ghe Sem: italian-style dim sum

Milan is the most international of the Italian cities, the financial and entrepreneurial heart of the country, outpost (and initiator) of new trends... in fashion, overall habits and most importantly, at least for this page, food.

Milan is a fertile soil for new gastronomic experience, restaurants, bars and new food concepts.

An example is Ghe Sem: 'smart casual' restaurant that combines the popular Dim Sum, Chinese 'tapas' served in small steamer baskets, with well-made cocktails (eating while drinking cocktails is a well establish trend nowadays in Milan) - strongly recommend Enola Gay mixing Nikka, luxardo apricot brandy and umeshu.

The extraordinary of Ghe Sem is that instead of pork, shrimps, rice wine and ginger, dumplings are filled with Italian recipes and regional products: you will find amatriciana, the Roman cacio and pepe, Piedmontese fassona meat, Lombardy sausage, the Neapolitan combo of sausage and friarielli, the Calabrese nduja, parmiggiana, squid and peas...

All in all, ideas and recipes are good but execution is not always optimal.

Some of the dumplings are very tasty, it is the case for example of the flavored rosso - with chicken, red pepper and oregano -, the juicy piemontese with fassona ragout and caramelized onions, and the spicy nduja one, but others may result slightly to fat (amatriciana), a bit dry (cacio and pepe) or not fresh as you would expect (the case for most of the fish dumplings).

Despite some faults, the restaurant remains a good spot to enjoy an Aperitivo Milanese with a twist in the two trendy locations of via Monti and via Borsieri.