Fashion is making its way into Milan's restaurant scene Through a series of collaborative projects with some of the city's best restaurants and beyond

The fashion world is entering Milan's restaurant scene in an increasingly structured and visible way, entrusting well-known chefs and establishments in the city with a share of its image and positioning. The phenomenon is particularly evident in the Quadrilatero della Moda, where the major fashion houses are transforming their spaces into venues that combine retail, hospitality, culture and gastronomy.

A recent case involves Dior, which has opened a restaurant inside its Milan store in collaboration with chef Enrico Bartolini, who designed the menu for the venue — the brigade, meanwhile, is led by chef Beppe Allegretta. In defining the gastronomic offering, Bartolini drew inspiration from La Cuisine Cousu-main, a recipe book — now virtually impossible to find — published in 1972 by Dior as a tribute to the house's founder and his passion for cooking.

The case of Prada Galleria and Torre Restaurant

What sets these projects apart from simply having a restaurant inside a luxury fashion brand's store lies above all in the role attributed, in these cases, to the gastronomic dimension. The restaurant, in essence, becomes a kind of brand extension, through which a broader experience is built around the brand's products and its creative universe. This is a model that allows individual fashion houses to extend the time customers spend in their retail spaces and to create environments in which fashion, design, culture and gastronomy coexist — an approach that is increasingly appreciated by consumers, particularly in the luxury sector.

An initiative that follows this logic is the one recently carried out by Prada with the Galleria project, a space that among other things combines fashion, fine jewellery, cultural activities and, of course, dining. The initiative also involves Marchesi 1824, the historic Milanese patisserie acquired by the Prada Group in 2014, which helps extend the brand experience into the gastronomic dimension. Inside Fondazione Prada, moreover, the Torre restaurant has been operating for several years now, led by chef Lorenzo Lunghi and highly regarded by critics, not least thanks to dishes that have since become iconic, such as the saffron pappardelle with violet prawns.

The gastronomic projects of Louis Vuitton and Fendi

Recently, Louis Vuitton also chose to develop a dining project in Milan with the Da Vittorio Café Louis Vuitton. The venue's offering is built around the concept of luxury snacking, where dishes and preparations traditionally associated with informal consumption are reinterpreted in a contemporary key by the team of the Cerea family — a historic dynasty of restaurateurs from Bergamo and founders of the celebrated three-Michelin-star restaurant Da Vittorio.

Fendi in Milan has chosen the celebrated restaurant Langosteria to oversee the gastronomic offering inside its store on Via Montenapoleone: the project partly follows a model the brand has already tested in Rome, where the Largo Goldoni palazzo houses, in addition to the boutique, various activities related to hospitality and dining. For Langosteria, this collaboration represents a way to bring its format into a context of particular visibility: founded in Milan in 2007, the group has over the years built up a notable portfolio of venues and invested in an international presence, developing restaurants and projects in some of the leading tourist destinations associated with the luxury sector.