The aperitivo hour: where Milan does it best

There is a moment in every Italian evening worth protecting. Sometime between the end of work and the beginning of dinner, the city shifts. Tables fill. Glasses arrive. Conversation, unhurried and genuinely enjoyed, takes over. This is the aperitivo, and nowhere in Italy does it with more conviction than Milan.

The word comes from the Latin aperire, to open. The idea, practically as old as Italy itself, is that a well-chosen drink before dinner wakes the appetite rather than dulling it. The modern ritual traces to Turin in 1786, when distiller Antonio Benedetto Carpano created vermouth, blending fortified wine with aromatic herbs and spices. It spread quickly. Turin's elegant cafes began serving it with small bites in the afternoons, first to upper-class patrons, then to everyone. What started as a genteel northern habit became a national institution.

Milan picked up the tradition and made it its own. It was here, in the early twentieth century, that Gaspare Campari's son Davide installed a soda water system at his Galleria bar and began serving Campari with sparkling water, creating, arguably, the first purpose-built aperitivo cocktail. It was in Milan, too, that the apericena was born: the more generous, buffet-led evolution of aperitivo where the food becomes substantial enough to count as dinner. These are not incidental details. They tell you something about the Milanese character: industrious, sociable, and serious about pleasure in a way that never tips into excess.

Today, the aperitivo hour is as embedded in Milanese daily life as the morning espresso. There are so many fabulous places to experience aperitivo, what follows are the spots I return to whenever I'm in the city.