Best hotels in Milan: eight places in a city that does not try to charm you

The Galleria as a neighbour

The hotel occupies a former bank beside the entrance to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, close enough that you walk from the lobby to the glass roof in a minute. Inside it is travertine and muted colours, with a light-filled atrium at the centre where lunch is served under a glass dome.

You stay for the location and for the rooms, which are among the largest in the city in their class, with bathrooms you can walk around in. It is made for people who want a grand hotel with everything in place and no surprises. The downside is that the cathedral square outside is packed from morning to night, so you walk a few blocks to find quiet.

The art hotel in the side street

Spadari is on a short street just west of the cathedral square, next to the food emporium Peck, and has been furnished since it opened with contemporary art and pieces made for the hotel. It is small, family-run, and the front desk remembers what you asked about yesterday.

This is the hotel we recommend to first-time visitors who want to be in the middle of things without grand-hotel prices. The Duomo is two minutes away, Brera ten. Rooms are modern and well kept but not large, and there is no restaurant. With Peck next door, you do not need one.

Via Manzoni in a single palette

The hotel takes the upper floors of the Armani building on Via Manzoni, where the fashion quarter begins, and everything from the door handles to the breakfast china was designed in-house. The colours are grey, beige and black, the lighting is low, and from the spa on the top floor you look over the rooftops to the Duomo.

Stay here if you like the Armani aesthetic and want it carried through to the last detail. Rooms are large and silent, and a dedicated lifestyle manager sorts tables and tickets. If you find monochrome design cold, you will find it cold here too. The price sits firmly at the top end.

The garden nobody sees from the street

The hotel hides in a private street between Brera and Via Montenapoleone, in a former convent with a garden of several thousand square metres that once belonged to the botanical gardens. You walk through the gate and find yourself in a park, with the busiest shopping streets in Milan a few hundred metres away.

This is the place for a weekend for two where the garden and the bar matter as much as the room. Rooms are warm in their materials, plenty of oak and travertine, and the spa has a pool lined in gold mosaic. It is ideal for badly anyone who wants buzz and visibility; here everything is hushed, and the price is anything but.

The roof garden over Brera

Milano Scala stands on Via dell'Orso, at the edge of Brera, a couple of blocks from La Scala. The hotel was built around the idea of low energy use, and on the roof there is a vegetable garden and a terrace where breakfast comes with a view of the Duomo spires and the Brera rooftops.

We recommend it to families and to anyone who wants Brera without luxury prices. Rooms are roomy by Milan standards, several connect, and the staff are patient with children. The décor is classic with an operatic streak, each floor themed around music, so this is not the one for minimalists.

The roof over Piazza della Repubblica

The hotel stands on Piazza della Repubblica, midway between the central station and Brera, and is known for Radio, the rooftop bar where half the city queues on a Friday night for the view of the Porta Nuova towers. The building is post-war, and inside it is dark, glossy and loud.

Stay here if you want a party, a view and an address that is easy to reach from the train. Rooms are large and modern, and Brera is a quarter of an hour on foot. It is not the hotel for anyone wanting a quiet lobby and local colour; this is a place for people who like something going on.

A rooftop pool, a cemetery next door

Viu is on Via Aristotile Fioravanti, a little west of Porta Nuova, in an area still more lived in than visited. The façade is green with planting, and on the roof there is a pool with a view across the city, something very few hotels in Milan can offer. The Cimitero Monumentale, the city's grand cemetery, is just along the road.

This is the hotel for anyone who wants new and well designed and does not need to be in the thick of it. Rooms are bright with wooden floors and tall windows, and the ground-floor restaurant takes food seriously. You take the Metro or walk fifteen minutes to Corso Como, and the streets around are quiet after dark.

The perfume factory in Tortona

The hotel is on Via Forcella in Tortona, in a building that was the family's perfume factory, and every suite is named after a scent you find in the room. At the centre of the house is a garden with trees and a library, and from the street outside you would never suspect any of it.

This suits anyone who likes a hotel built around one clear idea, and who wants to be in Tortona during design week or near Navigli the rest of the year. Suites are large and silent. The location asks you to enjoy walking or the Metro; the centre is not round the corner, and the neighbourhood is quiet by day.