Il Bar at the Bulgari Hotel
The bar of the Bulgari Hotel Milano: a polished take on Milanese aperitivo, the signature Bulgari cocktail and a private garden made for fashion week.
Aperitivo is a Milanese institution, and Il Bar at the Bulgari Hotel is where the city’s in-the-know set come to observe it properly. This is happy hour in the true Milanese style: the ritual taken seriously, the early evening given its due.
The bar’s signature is its namesake Bulgari cocktail, best enjoyed alongside the kitchen’s sublime selection of small dishes: aperitivo as the Italians intend it, food and drink arriving as a pair rather than an afterthought.
What lifts Il Bar above the city’s many capable bars is the setting. It opens onto a private garden, a rare and genuine luxury in central Milan, and the chic, low-key interiors give the place the polish of the hotel it belongs to without the stiffness.
During Milan Fashion Week it becomes something else entirely: one of the addresses, a place to see and be seen, where the people-watching is at least as good as the drinks list. The rest of the year it settles back into being simply an excellent, grown-up bar.
For travellers who want their Milanese aperitivo done with style, and would rather drink it in a garden than on a crowded pavement, Il Bar at the Bulgari Hotel is a considered, quietly glamorous choice, and a fine place to begin a Milan evening.
