Four Seasons, the 'place' in Milan for 30 years
It is a must for stars, an ideal destination for a business branch or a celebration among friends
by Sara Magro
3' min read
3' min read
Every city has its salon. The one in Milan is the Four Seasons hotel on Via Gesù, in the Quadrilatero della Moda. Formally polite for those entering for the first time, familiar for the regulars. Better if there is Fabrizio, the concierge with more than thirty years of service (as many as the hotel), who greets you with a wide smile and always has a nice joke to welcome you, even if it is the hundredth time he sees you! This hotel that took the place of a 15th-century nunnery, enclosed around a silent cloister, is one of the city's historic five-star hotels, and last July it unveiled its new rooms designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon, the star architect of the haute-hotelierie recognisable by his classic style and sober palette. Although this time he has dared with a few autumn-coloured walls and the forest green of the bathrooms to match the marble which, fortunately, has been preserved in a complicity between before and after, apart from the fact that the marbles were precious and to remove them would have been a waste.
In dialogue with the city
.The Four Seasons, 'home' of Anna Wintour in Milan, of many pop stars in concert and celebrities in incognito, is the best example, indeed the model, of how a hotel can dialogue with the place where it is and where it lives. Those who have an important business meeting meet at its café. And those celebrating a family anniversary find a Babette's brunch complete with Raw Bar.
It is the right place for an aperitif for two, for three, for four (with as many as you like), with Negroni and mondeghili in the garden or in the fireplace room that changes layout every Christmas: the Nutcracker, glamorous mountain, toy shop....It feels like being on the set of a film, where the plot is the punch, the afternoon tea, the finger food.
And of course lunch and dinner take place in the eclectic, soft atmosphere created by architect Patricia Urquiola at Zelo's, an all-glass jardin d'hiver where the light changes choreography depending on the time of day. The menu is more ambitious in its choice of ingredients than in its pursuit of the stars.
And anyway, the chef - also named Fabrizio (Borraccino) - has already earned a star in his career, and is now more focused on substance. Needless to say, the mise en place is fine dining, the shared courses encourage intimacy between diners, and the names of the dishes already make the mouth water: vitello tonnato (with meat from the Apulian Fratelli Varvara), ravioli del plin and parmigiana. But that's just one example.
