Mandarin Oriental Milan

Mandarin Oriental Milan

On Via Andegari, in the block of quiet backstreets behind La Scala's stage door, four interconnected eighteenth-century palazzi that spent decades as bank headquarters were reopened in 2015 as Mandarin Oriental's Milan outpost, the conversion handled by Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel of ACPV Architects, who had already given the city its Bulgari Hotel a decade earlier and were asked back for something less austere. The building's irregular floor plates, a consequence of four separate structures wrapped around interior courtyards with arched colonnades, were left largely as found, which means corridors interrupt themselves with the occasional step and no two of the 104 rooms and suites (68 rooms, 36 suites) share quite the same layout. The address puts you an eight to ten minute walk from the Duomo and closer still to Via Manzoni and Montenapoleone, the fashion district's spine, with the hotel entrance kept deliberately unmarked on a side street, a legacy of its bank years that Citterio chose to preserve rather than correct. Inside, Citterio drew on 1930s and 40s Milanese domestic interiors, using colour to mark function the way a residence would rather than a hotel: red, green and yellow pastels in the entrance, black and white in the bar, green tones in the restaurant matched to the marble jambs of the courtyard windows it faces. Guest rooms pull back into beige, black and white, with custom-made furniture throughout, including an oval table on wheels in every room that converts from desk to room service surface, and bathrooms sheathed entirely in white Italian marble, some with wet rooms combining bath and shower in a single enclosure. Two signature suites pay tribute to Italian design directly, one to Piero Fornasetti, one to Gio Ponti, while the Presidential Suite runs to 1,612 square feet with its own terrace, private kitchen and Brazilian marble bathroom floors. Food is handled by Antonio Guida at Seta, tucked into the hotel's second courtyard behind glass walls that open the room to the garden in warmer months, where Guida earned one Michelin star within four months of the 2015 opening and a second the following year, working alongside long-serving sous chef Federico Dell'Omarino and pastry chef Marco Pinna, with the cellar of roughly 1,100 labels overseen by head sommelier Andrea Loi. There is also the more casual Mandarin Bar & Bistrot, the late-opening Mandarin Garden for cocktails, and a spa with an indoor pool set beneath a skylight. What it feels like is a well-run Milanese apartment building that happens to have a two-Michelin-starred kitchen downstairs, discretion is the operating logic here, from the unmarked entrance to a staff that reads guests quickly and rarely repeats itself. It suits people who come to Milan for work as much as pleasure, fashion week regulars, people closing deals over lunch at Seta, anyone who wants five minutes from the Golden Quadrangle without the visible spectacle of staying inside it. The decorative confidence, all that Fornasetti and Ponti referencing, rewards people who already know those names rather than people encountering Italian design for the first time. You should not come if you want minimalist restraint or the kind of hotel that disappears into neutral good taste, this one is opinionated about colour and pattern and wants you to notice. You should come for a fine dining kitchen inside the hotel that most Milan visitors have to book weeks ahead to access from outside, and for a location that lets you walk to the Duomo, La Scala and Montenapoleone within minutes of leaving your room. The short version: A 104 room hotel across four converted eighteenth century palazzi steps from La Scala, designed by Antonio Citterio in 1930s Milanese domestic style, with Antonio Guida's two Michelin starred Seta downstairs.