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Situated in a former mechanics’ workshop it is a good place to people watch and listen to international cell phone conversations. It’s a stylish scene popular with the fashion crowd.
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From the Stockholm chain, the ice bar provides customers with thermal suits and allows them a slot of 30 minutes. Floor, tables and bar are all made of solid ice from Sweden.
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This is a cosy, low-key bar, with zero pretensions and a relaxed atmosphere. It’s popular with pre-match football crowds.
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[open]ed ten years ago, this is a bar in an old ATM bus station. As you might expect given its lowly beginnings, it’s free of pretension and away from the fashion crowd which is always a relief in this town.
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Top of the cocktail scene since the 1950s, this posh, belle époque bar is a favourite with people in the style and fashion business, and is particularly busy during the Milan Furniture Fair. Very traditional and very Milanese.
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The Bar Bianco is a recently renovated former dairy situated in the middle of Parco Sempione. It’s busy at aperitivo hour and there is a live DJ in the evenings.
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The high camp, OTT, Chandelier is a Moulin Rouge-style restaurant and bar, where baroque thrones, crystal candelabras and chandeliers hang in their glory. Everything you see is for sale.
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Low lighting, candlelit Balinese divans and canopied beds with cushions set the mood here (not the most comfortable thing to sit on). Service can be a bit slow or minimal. Try the cocktail called Soluzione Trenta-cinque.
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Since 2003, Gioia 69 has been an exclusive haunt where fashion people and wannabes mingle at the bar and restaurant, which serves high quality Mediterranean food. The bar has a live DJ and a contemporary look is provided by translucent-lit floors and alabaster walls.
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For true fashion devotees, Roberto Cavalli’s café is a modern glass box of a bar and restaurant in an enviable location at the foot of the Torre Branca, a steel tower built in the 1930s that offers a breathtaking 360 degree view of the city. For seriously glitzy and perma-tanned party people.
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[open] Wednesdays (admission free), Fridays & Saturdays One of Milan’s less corny clubs, Magazzini Generale is a large warehouse space, with name DJs and a cool, mixed crowd.
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On a corner opposite La Scala, just around the block from Victoria Café (see below), Marino alla Scala is inside the Trussardi building with a restaurant upstairs and bar on street level. The polished steel bar is in the centre of the space – you can either sit around the bar or take a perch at the floor-to-ceiling window counters. Cocktails start at €10.
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Walk through the Dolce & Gabbana menswear shop and head to the courtyard bar with slick, black-and-red oriental interior, dragon mosaics and an enormous red Murano glass chandelier hanging at the centre.
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Tucked behind neon palm trees, this street kiosk plays Latin music, and sells smoothies by day, with a slug of rum added at night.
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Plastic is something of an institution. It has been around for years and offers a varied programme with live acts on Friday nights. [open] Friday to Sunday.
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Victoria is a bistro-style bar and café close to the financial district. It’s a popular lunch spot with bankers and lawyers; beat them to a table by turning up at 12:45.
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