Andrea Aprea is back in Milan to take a main role

Andrea Aprea has left the box and is getting ready on the starting grid of the 2023 Michelin Gran Prix. A few days ago, his cafe-bistro debuted on the ground floor, followed by the opening of the restaurant on the third floor, and after the holidays in August there will be the proper launch of a project that is destined to leave a mark in the fast and furious post-pandemic Milan. All this at number 52 in Corso Venezia, in front of the planetarium, almost in Porta Venezia, where Palazzo Bocconi Rizzoli Carraro, built in 1871, was completely renovated after 2016 to make space for the museum of Etruscan art of foundation Luigi Rovati and, after that, once the project was ongoing, to the work of the chef from Campania.

Simplifying a lot, once you’re inside, to your left there’s ancient art, in the middle a garden full of small hills, and to the right culinary art. I’m grateful that Andrea opened his home to me as a preview, with everything still to polish, but you can already get an idea of the spectacular beauty of a place he has designed with his team of professionals and artisans. Starting from scratch. A total of 420 square metres, of which 190 are occupied by the kitchen in all its forms and the remaining 230 are for the dining rooms.

You get out of the lift, walk two or three steps and find out you’re above the tops of the trees of Giardini Indro Montanelli. Among the nature, you can immediately recognise the roof of the Natural history museum, of the planetarium and, in the background, the skyscrapers of the new Milan, around Garibaldi-Gioia. The windows beyond the kitchen overlook the back of the buildings in Viale Majno. Cooks and pastry chefs work open view, separated by glass. A very distant solution from their colleagues tucked in basements in New York, London or Paris.

Lots of light, sunsets worthy of a postcard, sufficiently spaced tables and, beyond the main dining room, a semi-private dining room and a proper private one. With this premise, and the slice of Milan where it is located, the decree of discretion required by the guests of Aprea is high. Andrea, born in 1977, has been in Milan since 2011, ten years at Park Hyatt and two stars. Corso Venezia arrives later than planned. The pandemic? Of course. But also the difficulty in finding materials, objects and people. I was sincerely pleased to see Jessica Rocchi, sommelier, as well as Luigi Mastrodonato, ex Cracco in Galleria, and Antonio Sena, for six years now working beside the chef from Campania. There are already quite a few people at work but out of the 32 which should be the final total, six are still missing. Hence many benefits like lunch coupons to be spent everywhere else, and travel expenses to move from home to Corso Venezia and back. If entrepreneurs don’t make space for this kind of benefit, their horizon will shorten faster and faster.

And now the food. Expect three menus: Contemporaneità, 5 dishes for 155 euros; Partenope, 5 for 175; Signature, 7 for 195. The menu à la carte in due time. Almost two years without Aprea who returns with his Caprese dolce salato and plenty of new and old ideas prepared with an assertive and light hand, an elegance that is never ingratiating. A decade, in his case at the Galleria, is a significant length but at his age it’s not enough to dry his creative vein. With the opening postponed at least a couple of times, people had been wondering “when will Aprea actually open?”. And now he’s opening, those who enjoy his recipes understand what they and Milan have lost. The chef from Campania is hardly at the end of his career and he will prove it effortlessly. Corso Venezia 52, part museum, part future in the shape of food. For info: +39.02.38273030; info@andreaaprea.com.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso