Keep Calm and Enjoy Milan

Di Francesca Cassani

Take a walk through Milan and discover all of the city’s new wonders

2015 is finally here and the Universal Exposition is about to totally revolutionize Milan - six months of international events, debates, openings and congresses in a city which is constantly evolving. So get ready to explore Milan with this extraordinary guide, which will take you from the centre to the suburbs and show you the city as you’ve never seen it before: looking to the future, but with roots that go deep into its history. Besides the traditional walks, you’ll discover the neighborhoods that are reaching for the sky, the new flavors which blend tradition and international cuisine, and the galleries, museums and parks of a city of fashion, contemporary art and design. A guidebook to accompany you through the innovations of a city, which is backing the Expo in order to construct its own future.

Francesca Cassani was born and lives in Milan. A professional journalist, she has written for several newspapers, and since 2007 has been a communication and press officer. She has worked for the Municipality of Milan, the Lombardy Region and she is currently working for the FNM Group. For Newton Compton she has also published È facile vincere lo stress a Milano se sai dove andare (It’s Easy to Survive The Stress of Milan If You Know Where to Go).

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Newton Compton Editori
• Data di uscita: 29 apr 2015
• ISBN: 9788854182646

Anteprima del libro

267

Titolo originale: Keep calm e passeggia per Milano

First edition: May 2015

Translation by Donatella Melucci

Mappe: Adriana Farina

Prima edizione ebook: aprile 2015

© 2014 Newton Compton editori s.r.l.

Roma, Casella postale 6214

ISBN 978-88-541-8264-6

www.newtoncompton.com

Realizzazione a cura di Librofficina

Francesca Cassani

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Keep Calm and Enjoy Milan

Introduction

2015 has finally arrived, so once again, Milano is going to change its look with the Universal Exposition. Six months of events, debates, inaugurations and international meetings.

Now more than ever, Milan is a city that changes deeply and constantly. It is a city to discover through a series of itineraries, without forgetting its roots in history, leading us to look at it with new eyes, toward the future.

In addition to traditional walks – an absolute must – we will try to talk about the new Milan, with new districts reaching the sky as well as new flavors that come from tradition and blend with many international flavors and scents. The Milan of fashion, with its beautiful boutiques, shows us its great artistic heritage. It is not only the Milan of culture and design, but also the Milan of galleries, museums, and parks. In short, we are going to see what is new in a city that has bet on the Expo as well on its future. Milan is not only for tourists, but above all for the Milanese. Too often, in fact, we are in a hurry: we take everything for granted and forget the beauty around us.

Therefore, we offer thirty itineraries for you discover, and rediscover, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. This is the reason why the «New York Times» considers Milan first place among the destinations to see in 2015, and «a revitalized city that welcomes the world».

Now it is up to you to judge.

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1

Milan with its New Skyscrapers

Forget the Milan of the 80’s. This is the Milan of the future. There are new neighborhoods, breathtaking mirrored skyscrapers, forests on buildings, suspended bridges and futuristic squares will exhilarate you and make you lose your mind. To understand the architectural, artistic and landscaping revolution that is sweeping the capital of Lombardy, the best place to start is Piazza

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Aprile. Although the presence of the Neoclassical arch of Porta Garibaldi (Garibaldi Gate) may suggest otherwise, if you simply just look up you will catch a glimpse of the changes that have overwhelmed the city, such as the breathtaking futuristic skyline which stands out on the horizon. The tapering curves, the tower pointing straight to the sky and the light reflecting off the glass are simply a few tastes of the wonders of the Unicredit Tower.

We recommend starting your walk from Corso Como. Browse around the trendy boutiques, admire the works of art on display at the Galleria Sozzani (Sozzani Gallery, at number 10 of Corso Como) or just enjoy a coffee or an aperitif in one of the most glamorous places in the city. You may happen to run into popular faces from the jet set and show business, but do not get too excited, because the best is yet to come. If you take Via Vincenzo Capelli, your walk exploring the ambitious architectural project that has revolutionized three entire neighborhoods (Garibaldi, Isola and Varesine) will become more and more interesting. There are swarms of tourists, strolling families and children on scooters. You arrive in Piazza Gae Aulenti (Gae Aulenti Square), pride of the Argentine architect César Pelli. Luca Doninelli wrote: «Opening a new square is like opening a new road. It means giving the city a new piece of destiny, a multitude of new possibilities, new beginnings».

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The square containing three infinity fountains dotted with colored lights and surrounded by a circular 105 meter-long cast stone bench-sculpture, that houses the Unicredit Tower and will welcome you with an acoustic-visual work of art by Alberto Garutti. Twenty-three chromed brass tubes, like antique megaphones, connect different spaces and moments. An amazing work of artistic genius dedicated to those, who passing by, «will think about the voices and sounds of the city». All around the square, beneath the tallest skyscraper in Italy, are alternating porticos under which the sparkling shop windows look out.

To take in all of the surrounding beauty in tranquility, go to Feltrinelli Red which, with the motto read, eat and dream, combines a restaurant, a library and an event space in a single structure. Sipping a cappuccino, you can admire the two splendid buildings, designed by César Pelli which – arranged around the square raised six meters above the street level – make the square warm and cozy. The mirrored glass of the Unicredit Tower reflects the entire city and gives the feeling (completely justified) that the center of Milanese life is right here.

Two different paths branch out from Piazza Gae Aulenti taking you to a completely renovated district. Obviously, we suggest you take them both.

After you spend some time to window shop, enjoy an ice cream at Grom, where you cannot go wrong if you choose the flavor named after the store, or if you let yourself be tempted by the seasonal flavors. Afterwards, walk along the pedestrian bridge that crosses Via Melchiorre Gioia and explore the Torre Solaria (Solaria Tower), where the most trendy residences in the city will soon rise. Then, go on to the Torre Diamante (Diamond Tower) designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. You will be awestruck by how the irregular prism structure and the glass coating effectively give the skyscraper the shape and color of a diamond. It is no wonder that the two smaller buildings located adjacent, as an element of continuity, to the building were named Diamantini.

Still under construction while this guide is send to press is the Unicredit Pavilion, a gigantic seed consisting of a wooden frame and a glass envelope with no interior columns. In addition to housing a nursery for children, the structure will have two structures that open (the wings, in fact) that will be set up with giant screens facing the park and Piazza Gae Aulenti. An image borrowed by the same architect Michele De Lucchi, who oversaw the project with the firm a

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, the Unicredit Pavillion is reminescent of a seed planted in the huge park surrounding the Unicredit Tower.

Returning to Piazza Gae Aulenti, you can continue for the second itinerary. Take the wooded path which takes you straight to the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) that the international jury awarded the International Highrise Award as the most beautiful and innovative building in the world. The two green Boeri Studio-designed towers, looking over the gardens of Porta Nuova, are home to eight hundred trees, three to nine meters high, eleven thousand perennials, ground cover and five thousand shrubs for a total of over one hundred different species (the equivalent of 20 thousand square meters of forest and undergrowth that increase the height of the Milanese landscape).

If you continue along Via Gaetano de Castillia you can admire the gardens designed by the Dutch landscape architect Petra Blaisse. An impressive botanical garden made of circular mini-forests, groves of sibling species, relaxation areas, football fields, tables for playing chess and areas for listening to music or reading will take you to the last gem of our walk: the Palazzo Lombardia, which in 2012 was awarded the Best Tall Building Europe. The structure, the seat of the Lombardy Region, is interesting from an architectural and technological point of view (solar panels, elevators without buttons etc.), and has surely been a trailblazer for the new season of Italian architecture. Just enter the square to be entranced: the 161 meters tower made of reinforced concrete, steel and glass is surrounded by a complex system of curvilinear buildings, six to eight stories high, which seem to evoke the lightness of a leaf.

Finally your walk ends here. Now we suggest that you sit at the concept store Donizetti: let yourselves be tempted by the chef to embark on a new tour, this time culinary, among first-choice flavors and products. It is the right reward after a long day walking around the city.

2

The Food District, from via Spadari to Eataly

To fall in love with Milan you must take a bite of it, savor it. Not only in its many starred restaurants, but also walking through the food district, which has now become as much a center of attraction as the Fashion District. Milan will charm and tempt you with colorful macarons at Ladurée, unique sandwiches at OttimoMassimo, noodles with truffles at Tartufotto restaurant and the Eataly market in the futuristic Teatro Smeraldo. In fact, wandering through the city, you will come across the most famous cafés and restaurants that, in recent years, have also begun to pamper their customers at the table.

To start your culinary tour we recommend starting from Via Spadari, a few meters from the Duomo (Cathedral), which, recently, has earned the title of food district. Within a few meters, you will find both high quality and delicious flavors. To begin, there is Ladurée patisserie, where you can find fresh macarons at any time of day. Then, at the Noberasco restaurant, furnished with elegant counters and sideboards from the beginning of the

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century, you will find more than a hundred different varieties of the best dried fruit, entangling your senses. Among the delicacies, you can buy giant Chilean grapes, Thai papaya and Brazilian cashews as well as Sicilian pistachios, Tuscan pine nuts and Calabrian figs. In short, a swirl of flavors that also includes more unusual delicacies such as ginger, kumquat, cedar and wild strawberries.

On Via Spadari you can also find what is probably the oldest fish market in Milan. The Pescheria Spadari is also the best fish market since 1933. From Tuesday to Friday (from 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm), you can dine on site: no chairs, just a handful of high tables to lean on and sample first and second courses, assorted fried fish and crudités. On Fridays, there is shrimp, tuna and salmon sushi. However, in addition to a large variety of fish, those who want to buy groceries will also find sauces, stewed octopus, marinated anchovies, octopus au gratin and stuffed squid.

For those who want to relax for an hour or so and forget the daily grind or take a break after an exhausting shopping day, the gourmet bar OttimoMassimo (it has the same name as the dog in Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino), in Via Victor Hugo, is certainly the right place at any time. The sandwiches, stuffed with the highest quality products, are prepared fresh at any time of day (up to 8:00 pm), while the salads are a real triumph of flavors (you absolutely must try the salad with buffalo mozzarella, anchovies from the Cantabrian Sea, and dried cherry tomatoes in oil). Last but not least, the aperitif. On Thursdays (6:30pm to 9:30pm), don’t miss their triple-entrée dish composed of a small fassona meat tartare, roulade tenderloin with paprika and tonnociolato veal (veal with tuna and hazelnut sauce).

In Via Hugo you can also find Giovanni Galli, the best chocolate factory in the city, award-winning since 1911. It is a real sacrilege go to Milan without tasting their legendary marron glacé known in Italian as marroni canditi (candied chestnuts). Do not just look at it: forget about your figure and dive into the almond pastries in varieties like pralines and pastries with dates, almonds or quince. Also, let yourself be tempted by boeri (chocolate-covered cherries infused with liquor), alchechenghi (physalis), chocolate coated citrus peels and candied fruit.

For cheese lovers, especially fans of fresh buffalo dairy, Madara is definitely a must, where you can buy buffalo mozzarella (in classic form or braided, white or smoked) that arrives (fresh) from Campania every day. Do not leave yet! Wander from mozzarella to caciocavallo, to pasta from Torre Annunziata to Neapolitan pretzels. Do not miss, of course, the pastiera (puff pastry filled with cream cheese, barley and candied fruit), babà (rhum cakes) and sfogliatelle (shell-shaped filled Italian pastries).

Savini Tartufi, an excellent Tuscan company capable of mixing innovation and tradition has recently opened Tartufotto in Via Cusani. Open at any time of day, it is both a high quality store and a refined restaurant expertly managed by Chef Simone Rugiati. Here Savini truffles from Forcoli, Parisi eggs with sausages and deli meats of the Antica Macelleria (Ancient Butcher) of San Miniato are the excellence of a menu that uses only fresh and genuine products. In the store, however, it is possible to buy anchovies, condiments, pâté, noodles, honey and dried figs. Everything, of course, is made with truffles. Let yourself go and enjoy the high quality and affordable lunch menu (12-15 euros).

On Via Mercato, just past the Princi bakery and pastry shop (stop by for a delicious sweet treat), the historic Rossi & Grassi delicatessen and the La Sibilla pizzeria, there is a corner of Liguria: Vianson makes the best Recco focaccia (the one with cheese, so to speak) in Lombardy. In addition to the classic version, Giorgio Vianson (Ligurian

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) makes focaccia dressed with tomato, anchovies, capers and olives (like pizza), with pesto from Pra’, with ham (Parma cured ham or cooked ham) and with cooked, smoked bacon.

From Via Mercato we suggest taking Corso Garibaldi to switch between shopping and sampling new foods to approach what we can call the food store of Italy: Eataly. In recent years, Corso Garibaldi has become the center of new fashions and quality boutiques: here people experiment, both in haute couture and in design. Leisurely going from one window to another, stop to taste the delicacies of Guido Gobino. It would be a mortal sin to pass before this historic Piedmontese chocolate shop without sampling the mini ganache, chocolate hazelnut spread, or maximo gianduiotto with 40% hazelnut. If you are there during Easter, you should certainly buy a chocolate egg. A little further on, still on Corso Garibaldi, after passing the Hotel Ritter (which, by the way, hides one of the best sushi places in Milan, Osaka) and the historic bicycle shop Rossignoli, you will find the Moscatelli liquor store and the Pattini bakery (next to each other). They are great for an aperitif, to grab a quick meal or an excellent wine for your dinner. In addition to a wide selection of cookies, pastries and cakes, Pattini offers freshly baked pizza and focaccia that provide countless, great gastronomic choices for a lunch break. However, the real icing on the cake are the farinelli, sandwiches that are crispy and soft at the