Men and women can’t live on Negroni alone. Pleasure comes from sipping a drink as well as having a bite to eat. Those bites are atavistic and necessary, but at times a more lustful one certainly doesn’t hurt. We all know the delight of night-time eats: a porchetta pork roast sandwich with friends after a few drinks and the sweets that satiate city nights. But what if the craving is more elevated? What if the sip of a Martini Cocktail sparks a yearning for caviar? Or the priceless sensation of an oyster sliding into the mouth, with the gin accentuating the ocean depths? Or the silky bliss of a fine Iberian jamon enveloping the palate with its fat, before being mellowed by a mouthful of Manhattan?
Late-Night Eats in Milan: Carico
This little journey starts from a cocktail bar in Milan that, since it opened in 2020, has always coupled excellent drinks with excellent cuisine. Domenico Carella’s Carico, with its minimalist ambience, stately desk-style counter and perfect ice fridge, is a cocktail bistrot that has made its Negroni list as famous as its marinated oysters. The concept of time is relative, with the practically always open kitchen offering the chance to enjoy a beef tartare with balsamic herbs and anchovies from the Cantabrian Sea served on buttered bread (shokupan). The idea of Carella and chef Nicholas Lentini is to rotate the ingredients as much as possible between the bar and the kitchen, resulting in great creativity and a menu that changes slightly week by week.
Capannelle, the Restaurant That Never Sleeps
But bars like Carico certainly aren’t the only places where you can eat libidinously in Milan. In the city that has chosen never to sleep, there’s a restaurant that has indeed never really slept since 1975. With its kitchen open until dawn, the Capannelle restaurant’s offerings are as varied as they are deliciously decadent. A sudden craving for spaghetti with lobster or tagliolini with salmon? They have it. Cheese tasting after a nice round pizza at four in the morning? No problem. The porchetta sandwich served standing is tasty for sure. But the fillet steak at dawn, with its green pepper sauce staining clothes and shirts, is the stuff of gentlefolk from time immemorial.
Late-Night Eats in Rome, the Jerry Thomas Bar Room
In a perfect, utopian world, where we could travel from Milan to Rome in minutes just to enjoy a cocktail and a meal like royalty in a different setting, Jerry Thomas Bar Room would be a go-to destination. A sibling of the historic speakeasy, this new location setting Italy’s capital on fire has been serving impeccable cocktails for a year, turning six tables into an Orient Express setting.
At first, the food offering was limited to taralli crackers, cured pork coppiette and oil-tasting with bread, but now that everything is up to speed you can move up a notch. For the past few months, to accompany their iconic Champagne Martini, you can also order dishes that make love to the drinks, with an incredible selection of ingredients curated by bar supervisor Gregory Camillò. Delicacies include jamon iberico Cinco Jotas, one of the oldest production methods, red shrimp carpaccio to go with a Last Word, and buffalo burrata paired with a Bloody Mary. We’re just waiting for them to start serving caviar as well. Maybe even putting it in a Martini. Why not? After a year-long tasting of over 15 different caviars, they’re almost there.
Baccano, a Stellar Place
The last but by no means least important stop can only be Baccano. You’d hardly believe there’s such a stellar place just a stone’s throw from the Trevi Fountain, open from lunch to dinner to – it’s worth taking note – after theatre. It’s not exactly a place for late-night dining, but it does welcome you at midnight with sumptuous raw fish plateaus and outstanding varieties of selected oysters. The bar offers artfully crafted, old-fashioned classic cocktails. The maître, Daniele Vespa, and his team are on parade with Dijon mustard, top-quality fassona beef and the unfailing egg yolk and spring onions. Which, of course, they prepare at the table, as in the old days. Fine drinking must sometimes go hand in hand with fine food. Sometimes filling one’s belly isn’t enough; the soul demands more.
The article first appeared on Coqtail – for fine drinkers. Order your copy here
