Cracco doubles with Palazzo Parigi

Those who have walked by Via Fatenebenefratelli in Milan, a one way street full of traffic, between Piazza Cavour and Brera, must have seen, just after the police station, the great renovation of a huge palace on the corner with Corso di Porta Nuova. At first it wasn’t quite clear what the result would be. Today there is no doubt: it will be a 5 star luxury hotel, with entrance on Corso Porta Nuova. The name? It’s surprising seeing where it is located but it sounds good: Palazzo Parigi. It gives an international touch and some sparkling charm to a big project which seems to be inspired by Paris’ George V. Same goes for the architect Pierre Yves Rochon, the same called by the Milanese owners, with Paola Giambelli, also architect who has contributed in designing Palazzo Parigi.

It will be opened at the end of the summer even though they hope to start in September, not later. There will be a total of 98 rooms and suites, including the presidential one, with four-digit prices, as stated (with reference to the total number) in the home page. This includes few news except the one which is more charming for the foodie. The kitchen will be handed to Mister Masterchef: “Carlo Cracco 2 Michelin starred executive chef”. This is what is written in a small, but not too small, font.

The chef from Vicenza will not move from Via Victor Hugo, quite the contrary. He’s been there since the beginning of the new century, when the restaurant was called Cracco-Peck, and he will continue to stay there, with Matteo Baronetto who’s been signing the menu for a couple of years now, so strong is their harmony. Cracco redoubles and the person to move will be his shadow, namely Diego Giglio, while the sommelier will be 27 year old neo-Milanese, young but with a very strong experience already, Matteo Ghiringhelli, previously at Enrico Bernardo in Paris.

Those who walk past the building site, less and less a building site, to be honest, and increasingly undergoing only some fine tuning and trimming, are impressed by what you can tell of the hall – it’s rare to find something as tall in Milan- with an impressive staircase, which is finely represented on the website. For those like me who live in Milan and don’t need a hotel for the night, Palazzo Parigi’s interesting point is the food. Cracco with more facets, I suppose. An investment such as this cannot do without at least a Michelin star, it has an horizon of glory that is very different from the Cosmos Hotel Palace in Cinisello Balsamo, with the same ownership but close to the motorway to Torino and Brescia.

I can only object one statement that I read on the homepage: “Located in the historic neighbourhood of Brera”. I’ve known this part of Milan for almost decade and I would never say that Via Fatebenefratelli, on the corner with Porta Nuova, is in Brera. It was even outside the very first traffic zone in Milan which had the Navigli as its boundary, and then the entrance in Via Manzoni or Via dei Giardini. However, cities do grow and the perception one has of them can change as the people who live there change.

Cracco is certainly more than Masterchef. He’s Masterchef because he’s become a great chef in real life. For instance, he’s back from Australia, from the Noosa Food & Wine Festival were he was invited for the second time. Noosa is a paradise on the coast of Queensland, North of Brisbane. Lessons, tastings and a dinner which saw at work Mauro Colagreco, Mark Best, Martin Benn, Cracco – he prepared an Almond soup with red prawns and elderflower infusion - David Kinch, Ben Shewry, Andrew McConnell and Peter Doyle. And in September he will go to Japan, and then to Identità New York at the beginning of October. All this while Palazzo Parigi grows.