Camparino in Galleria, Milan

Camparino in Galleria is the celebrated bar set within Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, at the corner toward Piazza Duomo. Its story begins in 1867, when Gaspare Campari established a home, restaurant, and bottle shop in the newly opened gallery; his son Davide opened this bar in 1915. The interiors were renewed in 1923 by Eugenio Quarti and Alessandro Mazzucotelli, with decoration by the painter Angiolo d’Andrea.

Wartime bombing struck the gallery in 1943, and that same year Guglielmo Miani acquired the café’s licence. The bar’s windows were damaged 87 times during political demonstrations. After 16 years away, the Camparino sign returned to the gallery on the third of January 2012, redesigned by Ugo Nespolo. The result is a café whose elegant setting carries a remarkably eventful history.