The Italian city suddenly attracting the super-rich

One of the most successful recent openings has been that of the Portrait — sister of the Ferragamo family’s very polished hotel in Florence — whose all-day bar and restaurant, 10_11, has become the place to meet up after an expensive splurge on Via Monte Napoleone, Milan’s famous shopping street, around the corner. The setting is remarkable, occupying the vast cloister of a 16th-century seminary designed by Carlo Borromeo, which was used as a hospital during the Second World War and gradually sank into disuse. Amazingly, the building had been largely forgotten by the city for 20 years until the Ferragamo family bought it and reinvented it, the vaulted ground-floor rooms housing two restaurants and a bar along with clothing boutiques and a spa.

Following hot on its heels is the Carlton, the new Rocco Forte hotel, which has just opened around the corner after a five-year renovation of what used to be the Baglioni. Eighty rooms have been reduced to 71, with some notably snazzy interconnecting third-floor suites with vast private terraces overlooking the Ralph Lauren flagship store in the street below. This follows on from the 11 serviced apartments opened in 2024 at Rocco Forte House, five minutes’ north along Via Senato. As with all their portfolio, this is a family affair, with Rocco Forte’s daughter Irene Forte curating the scents while his sister Olga Polizzi has designed the interiors, which feature bespoke modernist pieces inspired by the renowned Italian architect Gio Ponti and the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti. The bar is the major success here, with its perfectly pitched ambience and first-class cocktail makers, the half-size martinis being dangerously downable.

The Carlton has 71 luxurious suites

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Another hotly anticipated opening is by JK Place, a small group of ultra-discreet boutique hotels which has offerings in Paris, Rome and Capri. Milan’s was due to open in 2023 in the former Versace headquarters but is now expected to open this year.

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The Carlton has opened after a five-year renovation

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So there is no shortage of good hotels, but how does one, as a visitor, get under the skin of Milan? Rome and Venice put all their treasures in the shop window, but cities like Milan are more nuanced, less immediately stunning and demand a little patience. The first thing you do here is visit the Duomo, that great pyramid of whipped cream with its 3,400 statues and 135 spires, once derided by Oscar Wilde as “an awful failure… monstrous and inartistic”.

• 15 of the best hotels in Milan for 2026

You must make up your own mind about that, but what is true is that the Duomo, being so flamboyant and theatrical, is not really representative of the city. Milanese style is about discretion and subtlety, and what goes on behind closed doors. Think of Tilda Swinton in the 2009 film Io Sono L’Amore and you get the idea. If you’re staying at the Carlton, you are ideally situated to visit the atmospheric Villa Necchi Campiglio, the 1930s modernist house across the road on Via Mozart, where Io Sono L’Amore was filmed. Once the private home of a super-rich industrialist family, this museum is a useful snapshot of Milanese life because you can wander round its austere rooms, dotted with questionable artworks, marvelling at how forward-looking the people who built it were, keen to distance themselves from the past and yet creating a new style that, in time, would become dated (£13; SEMI, casemuseo.it).

The Duomo has 135 spires

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There is a restlessness in Milan, an obsession with reinvention that means there is always something new to see or do, while at the same time old favourites — bars, shops or restaurants — achieve a hallowed status. If it’s old-school you prefer, head to Bar Basso on a nondescript corner of Via Plinio, where little has changed since it opened in 1947 and negronis are served in vast goblets unless you ask for a “fragola” (strawberry) glass, as the locals do (barbasso.com). Waiters in bow ties scurry along the long bar serving regulars who all know them by their name, while old boys play cards or read newspapers on green velour chairs beneath vast bright chandeliers.

The best bars in Milan

For something edgier and new, head to one of the many bars around the junction of Via Melzo and Via Lambro just east of Porta Venezia. For a good natural wine, there’s Ultramarino on Via Lambro, but make sure to book well in advance, or try Osteria alla Concorrenza around the corner, which is less smart and also serves generous crostoni laden with steak, mustard and gherkins, taleggio and apple sauce or, for the brave, horsemeat tartare with herring. Booking is recommended and be aware it can get noisy, but staff are friendly and knowledgeable and their passion for good food and wine is infectious (osteriaallaconcorrenza.superbexperience.com).

Over the road is another old-school favourite, Bar Picchio, with its 1980s kitsch decor and bright strip lighting, a bar/tobacco shop/pool table hangout that suddenly gets crammed at 7pm as people meet up for a spritz (barpicchio.com).

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That’s another thing about the Milanese — they live for the after-work aperitivo. During the day, Milan can seem drab and ordinary, filled with people trudging to work, not as gondoliers or painters but in banks and offices. This is a city of industry, where Italians move to make money. It is their London, a thronging metropolis of business meetings and underground trains. But for the idle tourist that is no bad thing because when they’re not working the Milanese like to relax in expensive ways, with good restaurants, excellent wine bars and, of course, a world-class cultural programme of opera, art galleries and high-end shopping.

The one thing I always try to do when in Milan is see a performance at La Scala, the opera house where everyone from Maria Callas to Toscanini has performed. Incredibly, you can usually buy a ticket to whatever is on that evening because of its excellent returns system, where tickets can be refunded and resold up to a few hours before curtain-up. You can visit La Scala during the day as a tourist, but the building truly comes alive at night. Whether you like opera or not, this is an excellent people-watching opportunity, as you immerse yourself in a part of Milanese life that hardly ever changes. The last time I went, in November, my ticket to see Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte cost just €30 (£26) for a seat in the gods. Yes, you have to lean forward to see the action, and the red velvet seats are quite small, but the acoustics are so good that you hear every note, and the voluptuous gilded interiors of this 18th-century jewel provide plenty to entertain the eye (teatroallascala.org).

Another ritual is to head to the church of San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore on Corso Magenta. From the outside it looks ordinary, but step inside and you are hit by a riot of Renaissance colours, with every inch of the interior exquisitely frescoed and gilded.

Sometimes referred to as Milan’s Sistine Chapel, it delivers a double whammy as, once you’ve caught your breath from the first room, you step through a narrow doorway to find a whole other secret section behind, even more beautifully decorated than the first.

The glass-roofed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

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By that point I’m usually ready for a drink, so I head to Camparino, a chic little bar overlooking the Duomo from within the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (camparino.com). Founded in 1915 by Davide Campari, son of the drink’s inventor Gaspare, it was the first place to serve Campari mixed with sparkling water from a built-in soda water system. To this day, Campari-based drinks are the main attraction, served by waiters in white tuxedos. What you’ll find here is perhaps the most typical Milanese scene — everyone will be smart and well dressed, some will be having lively business meetings while others will be sitting alone, deep in their thoughts, watching the frenzy of the pop-up Olympic village in front of the Duomo, wondering when Milan will return to normal.

Matthew Bell was a guest of the Carlton Rocco Forte Hotel, which has B&B doubles from £1,126 (roccofortehotels.com). Fly to Milan

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Four good — and cheap(er) — places to stay in Milan 1. The Couper Sant’Andrea

This is one of those insider secrets you will not want to share. For a fraction of the price of all the five-star hotels nearby, you can stay on Via Sant’Andrea in the heart of Milan’s shopping district and still enjoy a sumptuously decorated room. This family-owned hotel is part of a small group of hotels in Milan and Rome, this one being a particularly sought-after gem for its convenient location, in a courtyard in the same building as Giambattista Valli two doors down from Chanel. There are only 18 rooms, each of them freshly decorated in vibrant colour schemes of reds, oranges, pinks and yellows. Breakfast is brought to your room as there is no public space.
Details Room-only doubles from £90 (thecouper.it)

2. La Favia Milano

This chicissimo bed and breakfast in the Garibaldi district occupies a late 19th-century townhouse and offers just four bedrooms, all thoughtfully designed and laid out. While not huge, they make up for it with the sort of soothing aesthetic that makes you feel as if you are a guest in an interior decorator’s house — imagine 1940s wicker chairs and hand-painted tiles in the showers. A further two rooms have been added in a building nearby, which are larger, the Baia Rose room being particularly stylish, with its 19th-century tiled floor and block-printed wallpaper. No breakfast is served, allowing you to live like a true Italian and head to the local bar in the mornings for a coffee and pastry standing up.
Details B&B doubles from £115 (lafaviamilano.com)

• More affordable hotels in Milan under £150

3. Max Brown Hotel Missori

If you’re going to stay in the design capital of Italy, you may want a bit of mid-century chic with your morning cappuccino. This one, near the Duomo, is the affordable answer for anyone who appreciates a vintage telephone and a working record player in their room, complete with half a dozen scratchy LPs. For somewhere so well designed and well appointed, the rates are incredibly low, especially for single-occupancy rooms, which makes it a good option for solo travellers. Bedding and soft furnishings are unusually sumptuous, as is breakfast — a vast and varied buffet enjoyed in a light-filled room stuffed with more cool retro furniture.
Details B&B doubles from £139 (maxbrownhotels.com)

4. Antica Locanda Leonardo

This is one of those old world pensiones that has been brought up to 21st-century standards without being ruined. You have to really look to find it, as it’s at the back of an elegant courtyard near the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of Leonardo’s The Last Supper. Still run by a single family, there are 24 rooms, all of which are quite different, plus two apartments. Most of the rooms are on a first-floor corridor and painted in bold but tasteful blues and greens, with high ceilings, wooden floors and period furniture. The rest occupy a villa behind, and feature individual touches like free-standing baths while some have balconies. In the summer, the leafy courtyard is a haven for breakfast alfresco.
Details B&B doubles from £132 (anticalocandaleonardo.com)