From the December issue of The Sunday Times Travel Magazine
Italy’s fashion city suffers an image problem. Most think that Latin spirit is thin on the ground in the place that invented the espresso and the Marlboro meal-replacement plan.
Come Friday, even the suits skip town for Rome, Venice and Florence, in pursuit of the dolce vita they don’t believe exists in Italy’s commercial capital. Yet by rejecting the biggest city in Lombardy, they are missing out.
For all its lightning-speed lunches and northern European work ethic, Milan is a red-blooded Italian at heart.
Treat the city like a tiramisu (another Milanese invention). Spoon through the layers and you’ll find it’s all there: verdant corners of Parco Sempione crackling with smooching duos; 80-something latte lovers twinkling
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as if auditioning for one of those healthy-margarine TV ads. In humble backstreet trattoria, as well as the smart canalside haunts of the Tortona district, everyone subscribes to la dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) come the weekend.
Milan was made for slow Saturdays and Sundays. Despite its reputation as an aesthetically banal backwater to showy sister Roma, it can be transcendentally beautiful. Behind groaning wooden doors, up worn stairs, your eyes are drawn to the dark stone beauty of the Duomo (cathedral), to Baroque palazzos and to Da Vinci frescoes so transporting they’ll make your heathen knees knock.
Regain your Milanese poise in the city of 10,000 chefs with the simple pleasure that beats them all: a saffron-spiked risotto alla Milanese, or baked polenta with veal and mushrooms, dished up in generous helpings to share with friends over a glass of blood-red Pinot Nero. Now settle back – Monday is light years away.
PERFECT LAZY SATURDAY
- Hop in the elevator to the roof of Milan’s brooding Duomo (Piazza Duomo; www.cenacolovinciano.org; £5) as the morning light illuminates one of Europe’s best city views, bordered by a fairytale froth of pinnacles and flying buttresses. The interior is equally fabulous: 40 terrific columns reaching to a faraway roof; stained-glass rippling and refracting like spent sweet wrappers; everywhere the organic scent of incense and human ambition. The macabre bits are best, especially the moody Scurolo di San Carlo, housing the bones of the saint who waged a one-man war against bubonic plague.
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- Pick a tram, ideally the number one route, featuring the iconic orange Carelli coaches with their brass fittings and seen-a-thing-or-two teak seats. You can spend a long morning winding through the Centro Historico. Stamp your ticket (£3 for a 24-hour giornaliero pass) and sit back for a bird’s-eye ride along Via Settembrini and Manzoni, through Piazza Cordusio, and back up towards the moody mass of Sforzesco Castle.
- Refreshed by lunch (see Where to eat), tick off the obligatory Milanese fashion-shopping haunts. The boutiques of Milan’s Quadrilatero d’Oro (Golden Quad) shopping district – Via Montenapoleone, Via Sant’Andrea, Via Della Spiga – will turn you into Holly Golightly. If you tire of struggling into frocks, head to the surprisingly easygoing Casa Armani (Via Manzoni), a mirror-and-steel-clad hymn to the super-brand, with a home store, cafe and fine chocolatier (pick up a beautiful boxful for a few euros).
Or try 10 Corso Como (00 39 02 626163, www.3rooms-10corsocomo.com), a bohemian department store that overflows with designer one-offs and objets d’art handpicked by fashionista and founder Carla Sozzani. There are three hotel rooms next door should you wish to flop after you’ve shopped (see Where to stay, overleaf).
- Like most 18th-century gardens, Milan’s Giardini Pubblici (Via Palestro) subject nature to all sorts of ornamental nonsense, including waterfalls, but are much loved by sketchers, snoozers and wan students penning their journals. Join them in the idle afternoon hours, lounging on benches. You’ll pass through grass thick with clover; pack a bottle of Prosecco and a frittata for two.
- Once a neighbourhood of dim repute, these days Tortona district is Milan’s answer to London’s Hoxton. It’s southwest of the city, on the green subway line, direction Abbiategrasso, disembarking at Porto Genova. It’s a top spot for dinner and drinks, so amble along the Naviglio Grande, littered with pop-up art spaces, second-hand bookshops, bohemian bars and movie-star Latin lookers. You’ll find some excellent people-watching from the plant-festooned terrace of Caf? Homemade Delicate (Via Tortona 12; 00 39 02 8356706, www.home-made.it; mains around £20).
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PERFECT LAZY SUNDAY
- Here’s proof that prodigious dottiness wasn’t the preserve of Victorian Brits. Museo Bagatti Valsecchi (Via Santo Spirito 10; www.museobagattivalsecchi.org; £8) showcases the lifestyle of brothers Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi, Milanese gentlemen whose whimsies ranged from tandem-cycling to hot-air ballooning. This, their 19th-century palazzo, is an ab-fab replica of a 16th-century Milanese nobleman’s abode, complete with ivory sundials and a plenitude of marble.
- Anchoring Parco Sempione, Sforzesco Castle (Piazza Castello; www.milanocastello.it; free) is a former ducal crib turned cultural centre that’s lost little of its sky-darkening punch, despite a post-war rebuild. Exhibits sprawl, so cherry-pick your favourites. The Pinacoteca museum (entry £2) is a highlight, along with Michelangelo’s last sculpture and the Trivulzio Madonna by Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna.
- If you make it into the nave of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Piazza Santa Maria delle Grazie 2), one of the art world’s greatest showstoppers awaits: Il Cenacolo, or Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It’s all here – a nine-metre tableau of covert glances, snickering asides and shimmering divinity. Book at least four days ahead.
- In the honeyed afternoon sunshine, make for Como – ‘the Lake’ – Milan’s celebrated weekend getaway, an easy hour or so on the Ferrovia Nord Milano trainline from Cadoma station (www.lenord.it; £10 return). Verdant Lombardy smudges by, and you’re soon staring into Como’s fathomless green-glass waters. Towns hemming the lake compete over their gelato – you’ll find the creamiest in Tremezzo (C10 bus from Como San Giovanni station).
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- In a city of air kisses, business is conducted, alliances are forged and well-clad derrières sashay over an evening aperitif – taken, as is the Milano way, with a hillock of free bar snacks. Current hotspot is the D&G Martini bar (15 Corso Venezia), and the cocktail of choice is a sinful Negroni: Campari, gin and Martini Rosso. Add a pile of ice to leaven its bitter taste.
WHERE TO STAY
No expense spared
Carlton Hotel Baglioni, Via Senato 5 (00 39 02 77077, www.baglionihotels.com). There’s all the studied elegance you could want at this place: swags and brocade tumbling onto marble, a breakfast buffet piled higher than the Pyrenees and ferociously groomed Euro and Russian clientele. Doubles from £414, B&B.
3 Rooms, 10 Corso Como (00 39 02 626163, www.3rooms-10corsocomo.com). This cult B&B, adjoining hip boutique 10 Corso Como, is the wildly original high temple of Carla Sozzani (whose older sister Franca edits Italian Vogue). Much of its lustre is in its exclusivity, but rooms are chicly accessorised with iconic 20th-century designo industriale. Doubles from £264, B&B.
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Middle of the Road
Antica Locanda Solferino, Via Castelfidardo 2 (00 39 02 6570129, www.anticalocandasolferino.it). The fashion set gets all aflutter about this discreet courtyard hotel, with its antiques and its location in arty Brera. There’s no restaurant, so you will have to make do with breakfasting on a Donatella-worthy coffee and roll. Take rooms 10 or 12 for their flower-filled balconies, or room two for its sunken hot tub. Doubles from £165, B&B.
How Milan, Via Tortona 35 (00 39 02 4898861, www.nhow-hotels.com). The cool-as-a-cucumber Spanish hotel brand has found its spiritual home in Tortona, shouldered by design studios, vegetarian cafes and eco apartments. The entrance is through a car park lit like a disco, echoing with dance beats, bearded by fake grass. The fun continues inside, with artworks littering the foyer and suede-clad rooms. Doubles from £170, B&B.
On a budget
Hotel America, Corso XXII Marzo 32 (00 39 02 7381865, www.milanohotelamerica.com). Spread over the top floors of an apartment house in a residential quarter of central Milan, America offers bang for your buck, with good-sized rooms. Those overlooking the courtyard are best, especially number 10, with a balcony perfect for steamy clinches. Generous breakfasts, too. Doubles from £82, B&B.
Hotel Due Giardini, Via Benedetto Marcello 47 (00 39 02 2952 1093, www.hotelduegiardini.it). The area, near Milan’s Stazione Centrale, isn’t the sexiest, but among the cut-price options carbuncling the district, this is the best, its shining rooms a few steps up from functional. The clue to its USP is in its name – a blooming garden. Doubles from £64, B&B.
WHERE TO EAT
No expense spared
EDA, Via Filippino Lippi 7 (00 39 02 6681962). It’s an endearing habit of the Milanese to religiously designate their restaurants carne o pesci (meat or fish). EDA is a palace to pesci, where the fashion set scramble for a hunk of succulent timbalo (pike pie). Mains around £20.
Trattoria Aurora, Via Savona 23 (00 39 02 8940 4978). The backdrop may be Art Deco, but the fodder is the stout, farmer-filling fare of Piedmont. Coniglio is the dish they hop through the door for: rustic, herb-rich broth with tender rabbit meat by the ladleful. Mains around £22.
Middle of the Road
Bice, Via Borgospesso 12 (00 39 02 7600 2572, www.bicemilano.it). The boutique Bice restaurant chain now straddles the Atlantic, from Montr?al to Istanbul, Orlando to Madrid. This was the original. Trading since 1926 and retaining its between-wars vibe, Bice dishes up the family favourites of its namesake Beatrice Ruggeri. Baby chicken alla diavola is a scene-stealer. Mains around £14.
Bianco Latte, Via Turati 30 (00 39 02 5830 6292, www.biancolattemilano.it). Good value for its location in the historic centre, Bianco Latte does easy food in a modern kitchen setting. Milanese diced chicken with fries hits the spot after a morning slog across the cobbles. Mains around £10.
On a budget
Pescheria da Claudio, Via Ponte Vetero 16 (00 39 02 8056857, www.pescheriadaclaudio.it). With its Bakelite, steel and squadrons of fishy treats glinting on ice, da Claudio is more retro fishmonger than restaurant, which is why the Milanese adore it, crowding onto its high chairs for amberjack seasoned with raw onion and olive. A plate and free glass of bubbly is £8.
Ostriche e Vino, Viale Col di Lana 5 (00 39 02 5810 0259, www.ostrichevino.it). A whole undersea world is on display at this wine and oyster shop. Highlights are crabs the size of Frisbees, sea snails and 20-plus types of oyster, from Saint Michel to Irish sea. Two oysters cost £1.20.
Bars and clubs
Hollywood, Corso Como 15 (www.discotecahollywood.it; from £14). If you look hot in Cavalli microshorts, Hollywood is your spiritual home.
Dark as a power-cut, this club on the Corso Como nightlife strip has hosted everyone from the Stones to David Beckham. Go during Milan Moda, when the VIP room overspills with models, driving the Milanese boys who have made it past the imperious door staff to distraction.
Jamaica, Via Brera 32 (www.jamaicabar.it). This terrace bar on bustling Via Brera has a colourful 90-year history that takes in Mussolini (his unpaid bar tab remains), ’50s counterculture and, these days, nostalgics and art students from the nearby Brera art school.
The Shocking Club, Bastioni di Porta Nuova 12. Lives up to its name, especially on Wednesday nights when its industrial minimalist decor is the backdrop for racy, retro-themed goings on, such as Village People night.
Shopping
Flea markets and food markets are the great leveller in Milan, with all social strata converging on the city’s cobbled streets in the morning to buy goods, from fresh fruit and veg, to handbags and chalky hunks of white cheese. There are markets every day across the city: San Marco, near the Brera quadrangle, has a famous bi-weekly market on Wednesdays and Sundays, while Navigli stages a vast weekend antiques market (www.ciaomilano.it) on the first or second Sunday of the month.
You know you’re in Milan when: You’re flattened by a Vespa driver, reversing at speed, lips pursed around a Marlboro Red. Don’t say: ‘Accessories – what’s the point?’ Local joke: Berlusconi arrives in America for an official visit. ‘Do you have anything to declare?’ asks the customs officer. ‘Yes,’ says Berlusconi, ‘but where are the television cameras?’
£200 buys you: A pair of classic shades from D&G. Milan’s favourite record: The virtuosic jazz piano of local star Stefano Bollani.
ASK A LOCAL: Arunjyoti Hazarika is an architecture student at Politecnico di Milano
‘Real men, I was told when I arrived in Milan, drink in Cotti (Via Solferino 42). It’s the city’s oldest enoteca, stuffed with wines, whiskies and grappas. There’s quite a jazz scene in Milan: Scimmie Bar (Via Ascanio Sforza 49) is my favourite – small and fun with a decent restaurant and bands every night. I also spend hours at multi-label DMagazine store (Via Montenapoleone 26). Pizza is an art form here. Some swear by thin and crispy, known as ‘elephant ear’ at Rita & Antonio (Via Giacomo Puccini 2a), but I love hole-in-the-wall Luini (Via S Radegonda 16), where they make a folded pizza known as panzerotti.’
Travel Brief
GO INDEPENDENT
BA (0844 493 0787, www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow to Linate airport (seven kilometres from Milan), from £182 return. EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies to Linate from Gatwick, and to Milan Malpensa (50km) from Bristol, Edinburgh and Gatwick. From Linate there are buses to Milan for about £1. From Malpensa take the express train (40mins) to Milan for £10.
GO PACKAGED
Citalia Holidays (0871 664 0253, www.citalia.com) has three nights at a five-star from £375pp, room only, including flights from Gatwick. BA Holidays (0844 493 0758, www.ba.com) has three nights at a three-star, from £242pp, B&B, including flights from Heathrow.
FURTHER INFORMATION
The Italian Tourist Board (020 7408 1254, www.italiantouristboard.co.uk).