The 36 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Milan

A former textile warehouse in the semi-central city holds a Michelin-starred cocktail bar and restaurant that Europe's 50 Best Bars ranks seventh in the world. The ground floor runs as a bistrot and cocktail bar, while twelve seats upstairs, half of them at the kitchen counter, host an experimental tasting menu that travels from Romagna to Spain without quite settling anywhere. The chef stops by every table, which at twelve covers is less a gesture than a genuine conversation.

1. The 50 #7 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #6 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. The 50 #43 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #22 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

Four joined 18th-century palazzos on a quiet backstreet beside La Scala make up this Forbes Five Star hotel, which means you're a short walk from the Duomo and the luxury shopping of Via della Spiga but the entrance itself feels like a secret. Antonio Citterio designed the interiors, contemporary enough to feel fresh, Milanese enough to feel right. The 104 rooms overlook cobblestone streets or courtyard gardens, and the spa, bar, and alfresco terrace complete a hotel that takes the long view on comfort.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A private cul-de-sac off Via Monte Napoleone is an unlikely address for a hotel that makes no attempt at modesty, and yet here we are. The Bulgari is a luxury hotel in the fashion district, its interiors dressed in the kind of natural materials that suggest the brand knows something about objects. A 43,000-square-foot terraced garden sits on top, which in central Milan is roughly as rare as a quiet table. It holds a Forbes Four Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A former convent with frescoes and vaulted ceilings still intact, the Four Seasons Milano sits on Via Gesù, tucked behind the Golden Quad where every major fashion house has a flagship. The hotel runs a full-service spa, a restaurant, and a garden bar, so you could technically avoid the city's relentless chic entirely, though you'd have to try hard given the clientele checking in with very specific luggage requirements.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

A former seminary tucked behind iron gates on Corso Venezia, this hotel in the Ferragamo family's Lungarno Collection sits squarely in the Golden Triangle, which is convenient if your wardrobe needs emergency reinforcement. The colonnaded courtyard functions as both lobby and neighborhood piazza, drawing locals in alongside guests. Rattan and leather details nod to vintage Ferragamo trunks throughout the 73 rooms. It landed on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, and holds a Forbes Four Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. The 50 #99 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

A converted 19th-century bank dressed in travertine limestone and black marble, steps from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and the Duomo. This luxury hotel carries a Forbes Four Star and reads every bit the part: warm stone interiors, a neutral palette pulled from the cathedral facade, and Baroque bones that no amount of renovation would dare touch. The shopping, the opera house, the cathedral, all walkable, even in heels.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

Giorgio Armani's hotel occupies the upper floors of his Milano flagship, which means the bar, the restaurant, and the spa all sit above the Duomo's roofline. The 95-room hotel translates the designer's aesthetic into three dimensions: pale woods, muted tones, and a hush that feels engineered. The Armani store is in the same building, so the line between shopping and checking in is thin. Forbes Four Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The original art deco bones connect to a newer glass-and-steel tower, and somehow the pairing feels like a statement rather than a compromise. This luxury hotel in Porta Nuova sits directly across from the central train station, which suits the business crowd that fills it without making it feel transactional. The interiors lean into Jazz Age decadence, all polished surfaces and considered proportions. A Forbes Four Star property.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

A Parisian-inflected palazzo on Corso di Porta Nuova, positioned within a short walk of the fashion Quadrangle and the contemporary galleries that have made this corner of Milan feel like the city's new center of gravity. The hotel was designed by its owner, which explains why the aesthetic feels deliberate rather than delegated. Holds a Forbes Four Star. The Grand Spa is a genuine draw, and the neighborhood handles the rest.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The neoclassical facade on Piazza della Repubblica sets the tone: this is old-money Milan, done in lavish damasks, marble, and collectors' antiques. A large luxury hotel that somehow reads as intimate, the Principe di Savoia is where fashion week's inner circle quietly holds court. The concierge team is the kind that means it, the rooftop spa offers cover from the city, and Via Monte Napoleone is a short tram ride away when the mood strikes.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

The Campari family opened this cocktail bar under the glass vaults of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele back when standing at a counter with a drink in hand was a novelty worth naming, and the house bitters were the whole point. It holds a spot on Europe's 50 Best Bars, and the negronis arrive in surroundings that make every other bar feel like it needs to try harder. Dress accordingly.

1. The 50 #18 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan

Hammocks, tribal masks, and enough bottles to stock a small nation line the walls of this legendary Milan cocktail bar on Viale Piave. Dario Comino has been quietly pioneering every technique in the cocktail world, from clarification to fermentation, since before most bars knew those words. Drinks here borrow from distant cultures while playing with texture in ways that tend to surprise even regulars who think they know the menu.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A classic American bar format in a Milan neighborhood that doesn't get many tourists, Rita has been doing fresh, seasonal cocktails since before that phrase appeared on every drinks menu in the world. The team makes their own syrups and ingredients in-house, which was a minor act of rebellion when they started and now just reads as good practice. Europe's 50 Best Bars has it at number 49. The crowd is local, confident, and rarely consults the menu.

1. The 50 #49 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

Patricia Urquiola turned 116 rooms and every corridor of this 1950s Rationalist building into something that reads as a design museum you can sleep in. The hotel sits on a quiet piazza a short walk from La Scala, which manages to be both central Milan and genuinely calm. Saturated color, geometric pattern, and serious vintage pieces fill the spaces without tipping into showroom stiffness. A rooftop bar keeps things from getting too reverential.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

A former perfume factory in Milan's Tortona design district, now a boutique hotel where the obsession with scent carries through every room, the garden plantings, and even the cocktails. The 60 suites wrap around a quiet inner courtyard that feels far removed from the city outside. It's a hotel with a genuine concept rather than a borrowed one, which in Milan is rarer than the price tag suggests.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

A lifestyle hotel on Piazza della Repubblica, a short walk from the fashion district, with a rooftop bar that pulls in the aperitivo crowd well before anyone thinks about dinner. The rooms lean into the Italian interiors angle hard, which in Milan is either a given or a point of pride depending on who you ask. STK occupies the dining room, the soundtrack in the lobby is very much curated, and the scent situation is deliberate.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

The Negroni Sbagliato was born here when the owner grabbed sparkling wine instead of gin and decided to serve it anyway. Bar Basso is an old-school neighborhood cocktail bar in Milan that has barely changed since the late fifties, and the happy accident has been the house drink ever since. Order yours in one of the enormous chalice glasses the original owner designed, a shape you'll start spotting around the city once you know to look.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Eater The 37 Best Restaurants in Milan

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Emerald walls, a marble bar top, and a grand piano set the scene at this cocktail bar near Milan's Centrale station. The conceit is a fictional bartender named Nik, sailing the world across the decades and mixing drinks inspired by the people he meets along the way. It sounds like a lot, but the room pulls it off with enough charm that you stop questioning the lore and start ordering. A Discovery selection from The 50.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The toilet is famously larger than the bar, which seats four people at a counter and leaves no room for ambiguity about what kind of night you're having. Backdoor 43 is a reservation-only cocktail bar tucked behind another bar on the Navigli, and the bartender on duty is working exclusively for you. Guests pick the music, the pace, and apparently the vibe. Very small, very Milan.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Two rooftop pools and a cocktail bar on the fourth floor of a building in Milan's Porta Garibaldi district set the scene here: the kind of place that decided glamour and a proper dinner weren't mutually exclusive. Brass, marble, and vintage wood fill the interior while the terraces open onto skyscraper views. The kitchen keeps the Italian menu light and seasonal, and the cocktails have become a standard reference point for the city.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The cocktail bar that decided pizza was the obvious food pairing, back when that was a radical idea in Milan. Dry is a lively, sociable spot on Via Solferino where the drinks are serious and the tables are meant to be shared, sometimes with strangers who are perfectly happy to share them. The room runs warm and international, the kind of place where arriving alone rarely stays that way for long.

1. 50 Top Pizza #15 · 50 Top Pizza World
2. 50 Top Pizza 2025 · Best Cocktail List · 50 Top Pizza World Special Awards
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

The black-and-white geometric mosaic walls do something clever with the glassware and smoked ceiling mirrors: the light never quite settles. This is the bar inside the Mandarin Oriental Milan, and it runs from espresso at eight in the morning all the way to a proper late night, organizing itself around aperitivo and the slower hours that follow. The outdoor sofas stay calm well into the evening before the room finds its louder gear.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Perched above a Replay store in Milan's gleaming Piazza Gae Aulenti, the Octavius Bar arrives as a nautical surprise, with boat-like design details in a neighbourhood that reads more glass tower than harbour. The cocktail bar draws the after-work crowd that lives in this part of the city, the kind of people who take their aperitivo seriously. Gae Aulenti is Milan's most self-consciously international square, which makes the whole thing feel pleasingly theatrical.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The name comes from the horticultural term for a cutting, a piece of a plant relocated to take root somewhere new, which tells you something about the ambitions here. Talea is an experimental cocktail bar tucked into a slightly unexpected corner of the Navigli area, with a room that feels deliberately intimate. The drinks lean on kitchen technique as much as bar technique, so what arrives in the glass tends to surprise before it satisfies.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A small cocktail bar with an industrial-meets-contemporary fit-out on a residential stretch between Porta Venezia and Piazzale Loreto, where boutique shops outnumber tourists. The team comes out of five-star luxury hotels, and it shows in the pacing and the polish, though the room itself is relaxed enough that nobody feels underdressed. Milanese regulars mix with the kind of international crowd that follows a good bartender from job to job.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A 15-meter bar counter lined with bamboo shelves stacked floor-to-ceiling with rum pretty much tells you everything. Rita's Tiki Room is a cocktail bar on Milan's canalside strip, serving Tiki classics and house originals alongside Polynesian snacks with a Cantonese edge. The same team behind Rita around the corner runs this one, and the vibe is full commitment: proper accoutrements, no ironic winking at the theme.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The sign is easy to miss, which seems to be part of the point. This cocktail bar in Porta Romana pulls you into a low-lit room of velvet sofas, extravagant mirrors, and sparkling lights that make it feel like the '80s never quite ended. The kind of place where you stop checking your phone without deciding to. A neighborhood worth wandering for its trattorias anyway, so the detour is painless.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Surfboards and antique furniture share wall space at this cocktail bar on the far edge of Milan, and somehow the combination works. The room feels less like a city bar and more like a countryside detour, all mismatched art and skating decks, with a plant enthusiast behind the counter shaking what Italians have always called "misture." Five kilometers from the center, which is exactly far enough to feel like you've escaped something.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide