Bulgari Hotel Milan (or Bvlgari Hotel Milano) is one of the smallest and most boutique luxury hotels in Milan. It is situated up an ultra-exclusive private street in central Milan, complete with 24/7 security guards and gates. Once inside this wealthy neighborhood, you take a left turn and head up a short driveway to reach Bulgari Hotel Milano.
If you haven’t stayed at a Bulgari before, I would describe it as a cross between a stylish Park Hyatt and an Aman hotel. Rooms feel luxurious and atmospheric, with great bathrooms and plenty of luggage space. The amenities are, of course, Bulgari, delicious smelling and generous. The bar and restaurant has the best vibe in Milan. It may well be one of the best places to spend the evening in the world.
Location of Bulgari Hotel Milan
All the major hotels in Milan are situated in the heart of the city. Most are hidden up pretty cobbled side streets, steps from the designer stores. Bulgari Hotel Milan is also steps from the luxury stores and main street, but it is the only luxury hotel in Milan with its own private driveway that leads to an exclusive parking area and lawns framed by pretty trees. This is a hotel that gives you the space to relax and breathe in a city which never stops.
In fact, once you step outside the entrance gates, you are immediately bombarded with the historic center of Milan. Its narrow one-way streets are paved in ancient Roman cobbles and paving slabs. Noisy scooters and hesitant cars weave their way through impossibly small alleyways. Beautiful facades of classical buildings and historic fountains greet you at every corner. And Duomo di Milano, the postcard-perfect Gothic cathedral whose construction spanned six centuries, from the 1380s to the 1960s, is just a 5-minute stroll away.
We flew in on British Airways into Milan Linate airport, which is around a 20-minute drive from the city center (around €90 EUR). By comparison, if we had arrived at Milam Malpensa, the taxi journey would have taken an hour and cost around €200 EUR).
Style & Character
Bulgari Hotel Milan is an ultra-modern hotel in a district that feels classical and historic. It has the most wonderful decked patio and a 4,000 m² private garden where you can enjoy drinks and dining under the stars (and under electric heater lamps early and late in the season). The garden is a natural extension of the nearby Botanical Garden and provides a restorative oasis dating as far back as 1305.
Much of the hotel’s facade is clean, stark, and modern, although the building is actually made up of three sections and the oldest of the three façades dates back to the 1700s. The modernity of much of the facade is continued inside, with black marble from Zimbabwe coating the floors and walls and giving way to cozy corners with comfy sofas and an impressive fireplace. The walls of the lobby lounge also host glorious prints of beautiful women sporting ostentatiously large Bulgari jewels.
Service & Facilities
I don’t think Spa pools get more sparkly than the Spa pool at Bulgari Hotel Milan. The tiles on the stairs of the pool are made of pure gold, and the mosaic tiling in the rest of the pool also sparkles like jewels. This is a serene and luxurious place to relax on a comfy lounger.
The Spa also has four private rooms and one couples treatment room outfitted for personalized treatments. There’s also a decent-sized gym in this wellness area.
Rooms
With just 61 rooms and suites, Bulgari Hotel Milan is one of the smallest luxury hotels in Milan. Its boutique size means that the staff will remember you, and the hotel excels at making guests feel special. We stayed in a Premium Room that overlooked a historic Milanese courtyard. This room was similar but slightly larger than the Superior and Deluxe rooms. All rooms are a good size, but ours was slightly wider to fit a roll-away bed for my son.
The room design was clever and was reached by plush atmospheric corridors. At the entrance was a large walking wardrobe to store your cases. Make your way into the room, and you discover decor with a coffee palate. The room had a pine wood floor, a dark wood headboard, and a glass-metal divider that split the bathroom from the bedroom. The glass divider had a golden fogged effect with a thousand little gold lines running through the glass.
The bathroom, like the communal areas, had black tiles and work surfaces. There was a large bath near the window so you could soak with a view, a large walk-in shower in white Navona travertine, a vanity area with a basin that offered plenty of counter space, and a separate toilet and bidet at the end. The whole design was clever, as it felt airy and spacious while providing everything you would want in a reasonably compact space. I particularly liked the floor-to-ceiling windows in both the bedroom and the bathroom (ours lead out onto a Romeo and Juliet balcony).
Best Bulgari Hotels In The World
Which Bulgari (or Bvlgari) hotel is the best in the world? The best Bulgari hotels offer a similar level of luxury to the best Four Seasons hotels in the world. A big difference is that all Bulgari hotel stays will earn you Marriott Bonvoy points, which is a major advantage over Four Seasons hotels as Four Seasons hotels have no loyalty rewards.
Food & Drink
The Bulgari Bar is a fabulous airy space with spectacular floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto their serene private garden. A generous oval bar in black resin dominates this area, with Il Ristorante – Niko Romit” on the inside side of the oval bar and Il Giardino outside on the patio. Bar tables surround Il Giardino’s terrace and spill down towards the lawn.
This bar and restaurant is an inside-outside affair because of the glorious garden. The floor-to-ceiling windows mean that the inside space feels like the outside. The Il Giardino alfresco portion and the bar area beyond was my favorite place to spend the evening. Il Giardino is also where you take the particularly good Bulgari breakfast. In fact, the bar and the restaurant blur into a joint space, and you can pick from the entire restaurant menu whether you are sitting in the bar and restaurant, or outside on the restaurant terrace, or on one of the comfy sofas in the garden.
In the evening, funky music plays with dimmed lighting. Palms are dotted between relaxing sofas, and blobby lanterns hang from the trees like glowing melons. Stylish guests mix with sophisticated locals to create the top bar in Milan. Somehow this bar area gets everything right. Candles glow from every table, and cigar smoke and laughter wafts through the air. Great staff remember your order from the previous night. Magical lighting creates a light, but not too bright, setting. Great music plays, and the warmth from the heater lamps means that guests can relax in the latest designer clothing without getting cold.
This bar feels so cosmopolitan it could be an annex of the Sky bar in LA. It would also fit just as well with the beautiful people in Miami. But it’s perhaps because this bar is in Italy that it rises above the rest. The mix of highly stylish designer outfits with young kids and families enjoying an evening out creates a welcoming atmosphere. The vibe here is just right and is in itself a reason to stay at this hotel.
The restaurant food here is also fantastic. We had Seabass which melted in your mouth. It came with a tomato dish (so good!) and some of the nicest potatoes I’ve ever had. I can genuinely say that we haven’t eaten a more delicious dish, ever, and the fact that we could enjoy it in such a relaxed and informal setting was doubly special.
The breakfast at Bulgari is also superb with table service, and is included free if you book via our luxury travel concierge. I love that even in October, you could eat breakfast alfresco, and I loved the warmth from the electric heater lamps, both in the morning and the evenings.
For my breakfast, I chose delicious smoked salmon and avocado. I’m quite fussy with my smoked salmon and am always delighted to find a hotel that delivers smoked salmon without the slimy sheen you get when you buy it in the supermarket. The smoked salmon, both here and at Four Seasons, was outstanding. I also picked granola and yogurt with honey which was also a taste sensation. My son happily munched through scrambled eggs and pancakes, and my husband chose eggs benedict. All were beautifully cooked and fresh with top-quality ingredients.
Conclusion
I wish photos could pick up the atmosphere of a hotel. I look back at the extremely dark and disappointing photos I took while sitting on the sofas in the gardens of the Bulgari at dusk. They don’t show the flamboyant chatter, the faint whiff of cigarette smoke mixing with expensive perfume.
Photos can’t capture the enthusiastic and competent bar staff, who were always full of smiles. And because of EU privacy laws, I couldn’t take pictures of the multi-generational families enjoying drinks and food. Everyone was having fun, right from the youngest children in their high chairs through to the elegantly aging guests in their 70s and 80s. This ultra-luxury hotel embraces everyone. When I return to Milan, I will stay at this flagship Bulgari as evenings here are brilliant…
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