Why you should experience Officina Milano in Milan, Italy.
Officina Milano is a theatrical cocktail bar where Ticinese's former artisan courtyards meet Giorgio Santambrogio's accidental transition from customized motorcycles to bartending, vintage automotive objects and an internationally recognized drinks program.
Set along Via Giovenale near Via Col Moschin and just steps from the southern edge of Ticinese, the bar occupies an old Milanese courtyard within a pocket whose workshops and industrial premises have increasingly entered new lives as restaurants, studios and creative businesses. The interior preserves the garage premise through vintage motorcycles, automobiles, workshop tools and leather seating assembled around a substantial 1950s-inspired bar counter. A circus-style outdoor structure draws on early-twentieth-century imagery, adding another period reference beyond the mechanical collection inside. Paintings portraying members of the team as pirates and historical adventurers introduce a deliberately eccentric layer, with the people who physically helped construct the venue appearing inside its decoration. The result is a Ticinese lounge whose automotive origins remain physically present even after cocktails replaced engines as the principal work performed inside.
What you should know about Officina Milano.
Officina Milano is best known for Giorgio Santambrogio and Raffaello Polchi turning a functioning custom motorcycle and automobile workshop into an internationally recognized cocktail bar after Christian Louboutin unexpectedly provided the catalyst. Polchi had developed the vehicle workshop at Via Giovenale, and Santambrogio entered hospitality without a bartending background after initially pursuing another professional direction. In 2016, Christian Louboutin selected the former workshop for the presentation of its Spring/Summer 2017 collection and requested a small temporary bar as part of the event. Attendees began asking whether the improvised operation was permanent, prompting Santambrogio and Polchi to continue serving drinks through the summer before constructing a dedicated bar in front of the vehicle workshop. Vintage pieces gathered from markets gradually filled the rooms, and Polchi's motorcycles remained part of the surroundings as the original mechanical purpose gave way to hospitality. Santambrogio deepened his bartending knowledge through international travel, developing a particular interest in rum, fresh fruit and bars including The Clumsies in Athens, Copitas in St. Petersburg and Atlas in Singapore. Officina built a 300-square-meter laboratory beside the public rooms to support its cocktail work, giving preparation a substantial dedicated production area beyond the main counter. International recognition arrived in 2020 when The World's 50 Best Bars placed Officina at No. 90 in its extended 51-100 ranking as a new entry, joining Rome's Freni e Frizioni as one of two Italian newcomers in that portion of the list. Forbes Italia selected Officina among its 100 Eccellenze Italiane in 2022 and highlighted Santambrogio's decision to raise employee salaries alongside a five-day working week. The contemporary team retains Santambrogio as owner and manager, with France Rainteau as head bartender, Filippo Gaeta behind the bar, Antonino De Simone directing the laboratory and Mauri Alberca leading the food program.
Fresh fruit remains one of Santambrogio's preferred cocktail components, joining house preparation with spirits selected across classic and contemporary styles. Prestiné distills panettone into vodka before rich syrup, citric acid solution and Champagne turn the Milanese Christmas cake into a sparkling drink. Amistad takes another route through Espolòn Tequila Blanco, Silvio Carta myrtle liqueur, lime, Campari and raspberry orgeat, shaken and strained over ice with a rose petal completing the glass. The current selection moves through established constructions including Mimosa, Paloma, Mizuwari, Vodka Martini, Hemingway Special, Disaronno Sour and Aviation beside house creations Giasèe, Fruttiroeu and Drughèe. A 2026 collaboration with Disaronno added Fammelo Ebbasta, combining the amaretto with rhubarb-and-raspberry soda, verjus and maraschino, alongside The Good Daddy with coffee liqueur, hazelnut, coffee and milk. France Rainteau now leads the bar program as head bartender, with Filippo Gaeta working beside him and Antonino De Simone directing the laboratory that supports preparation away from the public counter. Officina has also extended its technical work into an Academy offering practical courses across amateur, intermediate and advanced levels, carrying the production knowledge accumulated behind Via Giovenale into professional training.
How to fold Officina Milano into your trip.
Officina Milano works as the evening endpoint for a route through Ticinese that follows the engineering, religious institutions and Renaissance patronage concentrated between Milan's former inner canal system and Sant'Eustorgio.
Begin at Conca di Viarenna, whose first navigation lock was constructed in 1438 to overcome the two-meter difference between the Naviglio Vallone and Milan's inner canal network, enabling boats carrying Candoglia marble toward the Duomo works to negotiate the change in elevation. Construction of the Spanish walls destroyed that first structure, and the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo built its successor between 1551 and 1558; the surviving basin became dry after the Naviglio Vallone and Cerchia dei Navigli were covered in 1929-1930. Continue to Chiostri di Sant'Eustorgio, remnants of Milan's first Dominican monastery, established beside the basilica during the thirteenth century and subsequently rebuilt after warfare between Spanish and French troops destroyed much of the complex in 1526. The friars departed at the end of the eighteenth century, Napoleonic and Austrian soldiers occupied the monastery, the cloisters remained barracks until 1911 and bombing in August 1943 devastated substantial portions before a later restoration returned them to cultural use. Conclude at Cappella Portinari, commissioned between 1462 and 1468 by Pigello Portinari, the Florentine manager of Milan's Medici bank, as his burial chapel and a shrine associated with Saint Peter Martyr. Its square plan, sixteen-segment dome and compact apse drew on Florentine Renaissance architecture, and Vincenzo Foppa's fresco cycle joined Portinari's Tuscan patronage to Lombard painting inside one of the fifteenth century's most consequential Milanese commissions. The progression moves from hydraulic engineering created for the Duomo works through a Dominican monastery repeatedly altered by warfare and military occupation into Pigello Portinari's Medici-financed Renaissance chapel, tracing the infrastructure, religious power and private patronage that successively shaped Ticinese.
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