It may share the same owners and central location as sister hotel, The Gray, but there the similarities end. The design ethos at the four-star Hotel de la Ville is more Sherlock Holmes than Alice in Wonderland...
Telephone: + 39 02 879 1311
Price: from EUR 900
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Like a Sherlock Holmes film set, the four-star Hotel de la Ville verges on kitsch in the extent of its quaint Englishness. Possibly de trop for some tastes with heavy patterned carpets, dark damask walls, cherrywood panelling and silk tasselled brocade furniture, it’s very popular with the Japanese and Americans, and not least because it’s right in the zone (some of the 98 rooms face the Duomo).
Unusually for Milan, it also has a rooftop swimming pool, and although skinny and shallow (not unusual in Milan), it’s refreshingly modern and surrounded by a pleasing bamboo-walled garden, sunloungers and decking. In the summer, the roof is peeled back, and residents can take cocktails in a bikini under the Duomo.
Its low-ceilinged lounge bar, Il Visconteo, harks right back to Holmes with Stubbs-style equestrian art and a private (and now full) cigar club complete with 24 brass-plaqued private humidors. The fitness club and L’Opera restaurant are more elementary, dear readers.
