Why you should experience The Spirit in Milan, Italy.
The Spirit is a lively cocktail bar where Porta Romana's after-dark culture, Fabio Bacchi and Carlo Simbula's bartending pedigree, Juan Carlos Viso's esoteric Art Deco interior and a rare-spirits program built around seasonal cocktails and private bottle cabinets converge behind an intentionally discreet entrance on Via Piacenza.
Set along Via Piacenza near Via Crema and just steps from Parrocchia Sant'Andrea, compact residential blocks, independent bars and the neighborhood's traditional street market fill the grid immediately south of the sixteenth-century gate. A dark studded door and circular porthole give little away before mahogany, backlit onyx, velvet seating, mirrors and illuminated bottle niches establish a far richer interior. Two contrasting rooms divide the evening between the brighter bar-centered Sala Sole and the quieter Sala Luna, with the latter housing private bottle drawers for members. The result is a secretive Porta Romana bar whose architectural concealment, close bartender contact and deep spirits collection turn the threshold itself into the first stage of the night.
What you should know about The Spirit.
The Spirit is best known for a 2017 project that brought together five Italian hospitality professionals working between Milan, New York, Shanghai and Hong Kong around their shared interest in the world's leading cocktail bars. Fabio Bacchi took charge of the bar program after earlier posts at Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan and Grand Hotel Quisisana in Capri; he had also founded the specialist publication BarTales. Carlo Simbula arrived as head bartender after experience at Morgante Cocktail & Soul and Pinch. Venezuelan designer Juan Carlos Viso conceived the interior after professional experience with Dordoni's studio and collaborations involving Artemide, Minotti and Molteni. His scheme drew from early-twentieth-century Italian eclectic architecture, Art Deco and Liberty, then layered astronomical signs, tarot, playing cards and illusion across two rooms. The opening team also included sommelier Valentina Rizzi, who developed the wine selection. Membership formed another founding mechanism: members gained dedicated booking privileges, access to private areas and concealed cabinets holding bottles purchased for future pours. Simbula remained central through successive seasonal programs before Ivan Francesco Filippelli rose to bar manager; Filippelli had joined the project in 2017 after working with Massimo Stronati and Stefano Agostino at The Doping Club and completing later periods at Navigli venues including Morgante. By 2020 The Spirit had reached the Barawards finalist field for Bar Team of the Year. Its current operation retains the membership structure and rare-spirit emphasis, with Filippelli leading the bar program and Marco Munzi, Daniele Ambu and Riccardo Prebiati named among the supporting management team.
Jean Cousin paired Suze, dry curaçao, Jameson whiskey, hibiscus-and-lime cordial, Avuá Amburana cachaça and Amargo Chuncho in the 2018 seasonal selection, moving between bitter French aperitif structure and Brazilian sugarcane spirit. Hasekura Deal took Plymouth Gin toward shiso, kaffir lime, citrus, lemongrass and Luxardo Liquore della Lupa. Nilo Jewel combined Glenlivet Nàdurra with African bird's-eye chile, lemongrass cordial and bitters. The following spring brought ten drinks inspired by Vincent van Gogh, created by Simbula, Jacopo Castronovo, Filippelli and Marco Rociola with Viso participating in the project. Eleven noir-inspired drinks followed for autumn and winter 2019-20, using detectives, femme fatales and cinematic archetypes to organize the selection. Later Shades of The Spirit reduced the sequence to eight cocktails and introduced food through Not a Club Sandwich, developed with bread from Crosta. The current spirits book stretches across whisky, gin, grappa, sake, rum, cachaça, vodka, fortified wine, Port, Sherry, Marsala, agave spirits and vermouth, preserving straight pours as an equal branch beside mixed drinks.
How to fold The Spirit into your trip.
The Spirit works as the cocktail anchor for a Porta Romana route connecting a Spanish-era ceremonial gateway, Milanese experimental theatre and an early-twentieth-century market pavilion later occupied by Dario Fo and Franca Rame.
Begin at Porta Romana, where Martino Bassi designed the triumphal arch erected for Maria Margherita of Austria's 1598 passage through Milan en route to Madrid and her marriage to Philip III of Spain. The gate stood within the Spanish defensive circuit begun in 1545, and surviving wall fragments still extend from Piazzale Medaglie d'Oro toward Viale Filippetti and Viale Beatrice d'Este. Continue to Teatro Franco Parenti, founded in 1972 as Salone Pier Lombardo by Franco Parenti, Andrée Ruth Shammah, Giovanni Testori, Dante Isella and Gian Maurizio Fercioni. Testori's Ambleto, Macbetto and Edipus became central productions under Shammah's direction. The theatre assumed Parenti's name after his death in 1989, and Michele De Lucchi directed the architectural renovation completed for its 2008 reopening. Conclude at Palazzina Liberty Dario Fo e Franca Rame, designed by Alberto Migliorini in 1908 for Milan's relocated fruit-and-vegetable market. Its iron-framed windows and floral ceramic decoration survived the market's 1965 demolition. La Comune occupied the pavilion between 1974 and 1980 under Fo and Rame, turning a former commercial building into an important experimental-theatre site; Milan formally dedicated it to the pair in 2017. The progression moves from Bassi's ceremonial gate through Parenti, Shammah and Testori's theatrical experiment into Migliorini's market pavilion and its Fo-Rame chapter, building an evening around three distinct periods of Porta Romana's cultural history.
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