This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
This urban exploration was made together with Gaggia, Baracuta and Stenströms. Brands that, like us, believe in doing things slowly, beautifully, and with purpose.
Milano is a bustling, finance-driven metropolis that seems to never sleep or slow down. At the same time, however, we know how many gems are hidden around the city: quiet corners, bars and restaurants suspended in time, international venues and riverside paths that bring you to the most authentic countryside with just a short bicycle ride.
With this in mind, we set out to rediscover it at a slower pace, strolling rather than rushing, focusing on the details rather than taking them for granted. Little did we know that we were in for a couple of great days!
This time, we welcomed our community member Carlo to the city, and he was eager to discover the surprises that Milan is so good at hiding in plain sight.
We met in the Porta Venezia district, a lively neighbourhood where restaurants, shops, parks and quiet residential streets blend seamlessly—almost a city within the city—and started walking around some of our favourite spots.
As we wandered through the streets of Quadrilatero del Silenzio, our eyes were caught by elements one would never expect to find in Milan: the beautifully ornate facade of Palazzo Berri Meregalli, a masterpiece of the Art Deco style, the bright flamingos chilling in the garden of Villa Invernizzi, or the quirky ear-shaped entryphone designed by Adolfo Wildt.
The imposing stone bench built in the outer wall of Villa Rasini invited us to sit down and unfold our backgammon board. All of a sudden, an architectural feature we’d seen, but never really understood, revealed its sense: if you’re not rushing, it’s nice to have a place to sit down and even enjoy a board game with friends.
Our next stop was Frab’s Magazines: Anna, the founder, welcomed us among the selection of independent magazines she carefully curates for her passionate customers.
Browsing through the shelves, it was so easy for all three of us to find something that met our taste, including niche travel guides, photography magazines, and issues of hard-to-find editorial projects, all selected by Anna and her team. “It’s a way to let people discover independent publishers they might otherwise never hear about”, she says.
We could have stayed there the entire day, exploring the countless pages neatly displayed along the walls, but lunch time was approaching, and the next stop was waiting for us.
Now, finding a place to eat in Milan is not hard at all. Finding a place to eat well is not difficult either, regardless of what you’re up for: the city caters to all different tastes. Some spots, however, are more special than others—they’re institutions, rather than simple bars or restaurants, and eating there lets you taste the truest soul of the city.
One such place is Rossi e Grassi, a historical Gastronomia (call it a deli shop, if you want) in the Brera district, where the true Milanese shop for lunch, dinner and snacks; a place where even something as simple as a sandwich with raw ham feels like fine dining—maybe for the quality of the ingredients, maybe for the atmosphere, or maybe for both.
Now comforted, we really craved a coffee, as most Italians do after lunch. But instead of a regular coffee at the bar, we had something more elaborate waiting for us—an espresso masterclass organized by coffee machine maker Gaggia and reserve roastery Cafezal.
To get there quickly and scenographically, we hopped on one of the city’s iconic yellow trams: it was at this point that we discovered Alvise’s weirdly specific passion for classic trams, which kept us unexpectedly entertained during the short trip.
With six stores in town serving specialty coffee, Cafezal was founded in 2017 and has quickly earned a reputation as one of the best reserve roasteries in Italy, to the point of being named Best Coffee Spot in Italy (2025) and Best Italian Roaster (2026). Coincidentally, one of their locations in Milan takes up the exact same spot where Achille Gaggia, the founder of the namesake brand and inventor of the “modern espresso”, once ran his very own shop.
As regulars of Cafezal, we knew full well we could grab a great espresso there, but this time we wanted to go one step further and actually learn how to brew a great espresso—so we joined master roaster Radu who, over the course of more than two hours, walked us through the process of harvesting, selecting, roasting, grinding and brewing coffee, introducing us to the complexity, challenges and rewards of a universe that surprised us with its countless nuances.
It would be challenging to sum up Radu’s entire lesson in just a few words, but what we learnt is that the coffee plant is heavily influenced by the environment it grows in: therefore, much like wine, the final taste is determined by the height, temperature and humidity of the plantation, as well as the temperature and duration of the roasting process. Each individual batch of coffee has a specific profile, and it can take a skilled roaster up to sixteen attempts in order to nail the roasting.
The second part, and the one that got us hands-on, involves grinding and brewing the roasted beans, and requires absolute precision balancing several different factors: the weight and coarseness of ground beans, the temperature and water pressure in the machine, and the extraction time all come into play to determine how good (hopefully) the coffee in your cup is going to be.
Armed with Radu’s wealth of experience, we were soon testing ourselves with the Gaggia setup at one end of the room.
On our second day together, we enjoyed a superb lunch in a historic Enoteca before discovering another side of the city as we cycled towards the countryside, finally sealing our time together in a great Hi-Fi bar. You can find the second chapter of our two unhurried days in Milan here.
