INSIDE GUIDE MILAN This hard-working northern Italian city doesn’t need to make a show of things.
Intricate elegance is woven into everything from the flagship stores of high-fashion labels to cutting-edge furniture boutiques and pioneering design museums Words: Sarah Barrell
Long associated with industry — automotive, banking and, more latterly, fashion and design — Italy’s ‘working city’ has become a byword for luxury. But this isn’t a place of showy evening passeggiate (strolls) or cash-flashy clubs. Milan’s most celebrated addresses are about self-assured elegance, from speakeasy-style cocktails bars such as 1930, and long-established Michelin- star restaurants like Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia — plus countless private galleries and discreet design dens. Book ahead to explore the city when it puts on a rare show of
extravagance during Fashion Week (February and September), where the focus is on luxury Italian brands from Prada to Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana and Armani. The fashion houses ramp up the drama by choosing incredible backdrops for their shows: stately homes, piazzas and gardens, plus private palazzi, studios and industrial spaces usually closed to the public. Milan’s metropolitan area is Italy’s largest, so it pays to select
a few choice neighbourhoods, although a modern metro system and network of trams, some with handsome 1920s designs, make exploration easier, particularly with a city-mapper app. The Quad d’Oro, Milan’s ‘golden quadrangle’ district, is
where you’ll find all the flagships of Italian fashion houses, including the likes of Versace, Ermenegildo Zegna, Moschino and Trussardi, with its neighbouring Armani Hotel Milano for those who want to sleep where they shop. Or stop for lunch at Paper Moon Giardino. Following its string of recent international openings, including a branch in London last year, this starry 1977-founded institution has moved to a leafy new courtyard location in a 200-year-old neoclassical palazzo. Expect a menu featuring seared scallops, grilled lobster and truffled beef carpaccio, served to a post-catwalk crowd. More big-name Italian brands bask beneath the sparkling glass
dome of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, also known as ‘Il Salotto di Milano’ (Milan’s Drawing Room), a gilded 19th-century shopping arcade overlooked by the flying gothic buttresses of Milan Cathedral. Explore the basilica’s rooftop forest of gargoyles and statue-topped pinnacle towers for spectacular city views, or pop across to Rinascente Milano, the ritzy department store whose terrace cafe is within almost reach-out-and-touch distance from the cathedral. Order a glass of Franciacorta, the ‘champagne’ of the Lombardy region or head to Milan’s original Campari Bar in the Galleria. All mosaics and frescoes, with a polished alter-like bar topped with Campari bottles, this 1915 temple to
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the northern Italian bitter liqueur is a one-off. Overlooking it all, the Galleria’s Osservatorio is an outpost of Fondazione Prada, hosting illustrious temporary exhibitions. Prada’s main venue, a Rem Koolhaas-revamped distillery in the Port Romana area, has become a place of arts pilgrimage since it opened in 2015. It now has a nine-floor exhibition space in The Tower, a gold painted ‘haunted house’ and a much-photographed Wes Anderson- designed cafe. Another industrial space lately revitalised, ADI Design
Museum has reimagined a former electricity station. The adjoining Hotel Viu has a green-planted facade recalling Milan’s pioneering Vertical Forest skyscraper, on top of which balances a rooftop pool. Order a poolside spritzer, with views over the pedigree cat cafes and bao bun shops of the city’s increasingly hip China Town below, and of Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a soaring glasshouse structure with a bookshop, gallery and cinema dedicated to art and design. From here, you’re within dashing distance of Teatro dal
Verme — an art nouveau venue for classical music, an elegant alternative to opera at Teatro alla Scala — and the Museo Cenacolo Vinciano, home to Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. These venues are backed by both the beautiful Cimitero Monumentale, lined with towering sculptural tombs, and the Parco Sempione, a glorious green space within which lies the palatial Triennale di Milano, where the exhibits tell the story of design, Italian and international, from the 1920s to today. Giardini Indro Montanelli is another park bookended by
excellent museums. To the south, the Galleria Arte Moderna is home to standouts from neoclassical sculptor Canova to works by 20th-century futurist painters Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni. To the east, Fondazione Rovati houses modern art masterpieces alongside what’s perhaps Italy’s finest collection of ancient Etruscan artefacts. Both also have decadent dining options. In the former, LuBar is set in the 18th-century conservatory off the gallery’s central courtyard and serves a sought-after brunch menu, with water misters keeping linen-clad patrons cool in summer months. In the latter, chef Andrea Aprea heads up his eponymous two-Michelin-star panoramic rooftop spot, with eight-course tasting menus taking in elevated pan- Italian classics, ranging from the likes of sea bass acquapazza (spiced ‘crazy water’ sauce) to braised beef Genovese cannelloni. Buon appetito!
IMAGE: AWL IMAGES
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