December 15, 2023
Tablet is how you book the world’s most exciting hotels — places where you get a memorable experience, not just a room for the night. For over 20 years we've scoured the earth to find hotels that stand out for their style, service, and personality, across all price ranges. Start your next adventure with Tablet, the hotel experts at the MICHELIN Guide.
Here are the ten best pet-friendly hotels in Milan, Italy. Be sure to contact our Travel Specialists for the most up-to-date information and specific pet-friendly policies at each hotel.
Milan’s hotel scene is a place where hospitality and retail go comfortably hand in hand. There are hotels owned by fashion houses, by jewelers, and even one hotel that’s literally located inside a high-end mall. So Magna Pars L’Hotel À Parfum, a gleaming all-suite hotel on Via Forcella, is not without precedent: it’s owned by Milan’s Martone family of perfumers. For most of the past century the building was the family’s “essences factory,” but like Milan itself, it’s gotten quite a facelift since its industrial days. Encased in glass and flooded with light, furnished by forward-thinking designers and contemporary Milanese artisans, it looks every bit the live-in design showroom that it pretty much is, perfectly at home in a neighborhood defined by its design studios, architecture firms and fashion houses. During Milan’s Design Week there may be no better place to stay, though the fact is that at Magna Pars L’Hotel À Parfum it feels a bit like Design Week all year round.
The hoteliers do well to apply the olfactory theme with a light touch. Suites are named after fragrant flowers and plants (gardenia, jasmine, sandalwood) and there are occasional, well-placed visual reminders (an image of a wind-swept lavender field on the wall of the restaurant), but no one is getting spritzed with samples as they walk down the halls. In fact there’s plenty of room to breathe. The suites start out industrial-scale massive and only get bigger as you go up the scale, and they’re made to feel still airier by their views of the hotel’s courtyard garden and all the immaculate white décor. They’re high-tech, as well, everything from the curtains to the temperature controlled from a single panel.
The idea of a hotel with a verdant, pastoral touch is at odds with the ultra-urban industrial vibe that this northern Italian city is known for. Aethos Milan achieves this improbable feat, with a location on a leafy courtyard next to the Naviglio Grande Canal. And what’s inside is equally unusual in the context of Milanese hotel design. First of all, there’s a bit of the classic bed-and-breakfast about it. Aethos is family-owned, and we’re not talking about one of the multinational fashion-empire families — the actual proprietors themselves are on site, and they’ll trust you with the keys to the place after they lock up. (See how that compares with Mr. Armani’s place across town.) And while the interiors are impeccably designed, there’s more of a drawing-room vibe in the lobby than a public-architecture vibe — this house is meant to be inhabited, not just photographed.
Same goes for the rooms. The contemporary Italian furniture means all the luxury-hotel bona fides are in order, and while they’re graphically striking, the suites (each following its own sporting theme, from golf and tennis to fencing and polo) aim for warm and clubby rather than cold and aloof. It’s a good thing, too — though the hotel’s Duke Bar is a very fine place for a drink, in this part of town you’ve likely got plans outside of the premises. Where better to retire for the night after an evening of Milanese carousing?
The name could hardly be more French, but the Chateau Monfort, on the fringes of the Milanese city center, isn’t your typical storybook chateau. To be fair, it isn’t your typical Milanese design hotel — or your typical anything, for that matter. It may begin with a classically French sensibility, but it’s filtered through a deranged postmodern imagination, and the result, though certainly stylish in its unique way, is about as far as you can get from the sober tones and high seriousness of Milanese luxury design.
Chateau Monfort’s public spaces are theatrical, or maybe cinematic, all atmosphere, with no time for the corporate sheen that too often dulls the high-end design hotel. And while most hotels would tone it down a bit in the rooms and suites, Chateau Monfort keeps the atmosphere cranked to eleven, mixing modern gestures and classic elements in unusual color combinations. You could call it Louis XXI — for their part, they call it “neo-Romantic.” By any name, it’s the sort of experience you’ll likely remember for a while, which is, as you know, quite a lot of what it’s about, for us. Unforgettable personality plus five-star comforts — it’s hard to ask for much more. A full-service spa, a modern Italian restaurant, and a cellar wine bar round out the in-house attractions, while the location places you a few streets away from what might be the world’s most luxurious shopping district.
Milan is a city that could use a bit of green. In a former life this was the Splendido, a fairly standard luxury hotel across from the central rail station, just northwest of the city center. In its current incarnation it keeps this location, of course, but it makes the most of the thin sliver of parkland between it and the station; today it’s the Starhotels E.c.ho., a bit of clever punctuation that’s meant to underline the Echo’s credentials as an eco-hotel — or, as they prefer, an “eco-contemporary hotel.”
The shoe certainly fits. The earth tones and natural wood textures of the Echo’s interiors are a world apart from the marble and gold of the typical Milanese luxury hotel. Energy efficiency is the watchword in the rooms, from the smart thermostats to low-flow bathrooms and solar-generated electricity. And when it comes to lighting, nothing’s more efficient than natural sunlight — which, lucky for everyone involved, is also the most attractive lighting scheme yet invented. A restaurant and bar carry on in a similar style and eco-friendly theme, and they introduce another one of the Echo’s green details — they open onto the green courtyard with its vegetable garden, the sort of pastoral touch that’s by no means a given in Milan.
While Milan may be the capital of Italian fashion, you would never have known it from its hotels — until recently, they have all come in two flavors: the over-the-top opulence of the palatial luxury hotels, and the carpeted blandness of the corporate chains. The Gray is representative of a new (new to Italy, at least) movement toward modern, daringly designed hotels. The location is impossible to beat, just off the Piazza del Duomo, near the Galleria and the Scala opera house, in the center of Milan's shopping and commercial district. The hotel itself is hardly the grand affair one might expect in this Baroque city; it is in fact a converted office, on a humble side street. But inside, it is a modern design playground, starting with the swing, a pink mattress suspended from the ceiling in front of the reception desk.
The 21 guest rooms are in (naturally) 21 different styles, but all bear a certain family resemblance, in ebony wood furniture and ivory-colored fabrics and leather. Two of the suites have private workout rooms, and two others have steam rooms. Flat-screen TVs are standard, and there is wireless internet access all around, fitting for this most businesslike of Italian cities. Il Bar is, obviously, the bar, and the bar itself is made of white glass, attractive enough in itself but all the more so in contrast with the all-black restaurant upstairs. Le Noir (again, sensibly named) features tables of black lacquer and upholstery of black velvet.
Some hotels need to be seen to be properly understood. Other hotel concepts, though, more or less speak for themselves. Simply at the mention of the Armani Hotel Milan one knows what one’s going to get: a bold and tasteful elegance, a certain richness in texture and materials, and of course an imposing silhouette — and one, incidentally, that’s suitable both for business and for pleasure.
In one sense it’s almost a living showroom for the Armani Casa shop across the road. But it’s more than that — a hotel, for a fashion chain, is a showroom for an entire lifestyle, and these interiors, modern Milanese to a tee, will have you checking yourself in the mirror to make sure you’re measuring up. And like the best in fashion, they’re more than surface deep, with a remarkable amount of attention paid to the physical luxuries that don’t show up on film. Ninety-five rooms isn’t enormous, but without question the Armani joins the Milanese big league, competing directly against the town’s top luxury hotels. The spa and the restaurants see to these high-flying guests’ needs in the manner to which they’re accustomed, and the location is tough to beat, with walking access to what’s arguably the world’s finest shopping district. As branding, it’s a stroke of genius — and it’s no less impressive as a hotel.
Milan’s public image as a grey and smoggy industrial town seems to have receded (even if the greyness and smog have not) in favor of its status as the Italian couture capital. And who better to have as your host in this city of conspicuous consumption than Bulgari, the famous jeweler, watchmaker and luxury-goods house. Rooms are almost impossibly luxurious, in a way that is familiar (plush Frette-dressed beds, enormous black granite tubs) but is impressive in terms of sheer excess. Closets are palatial, perfectly suited to the style-conscious clientele, and gadgetry includes the expected flat-screen TV as well as a mobile phone programmed to the room’s extension. Some hotels boast about Bulgari bath amenities as a selling point—here, of course, it’s the house brand.
Perhaps unexpectedly for a smallish city boutique hotel, the Bulgari does have a restaurant, with a glass facade looking out onto the gardens of the grounds, formerly a monastery courtyard. Also accounted for are a spa, in a setting of emerald-green glass, and a swimming pool dressed in gold and green mosaic—again, two luxuries that might seem surprising were it not for the sheer overkill of this place. The hotel is practically within a bejeweled arm’s length of some of Milan’s finest retailers and boutiques; its Brera location makes for easy access to the Golden Quadrangle, with Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace and Armani, among others, all gathered together in one place. The hotel offers a personal shopping service to those overwhelmed by the variety—sometimes there’s just too much to buy and too little time. And if a shopping spree induces guilty feelings, there’s always the Duomo and La Scala, offering up some high culture to soothe your couture-addled soul.
Milan is hardly uncharted territory for luxury brands. The world’s high-end hoteliers, in particular, are at the top of their game here, going out of their way to adapt their five-star offerings to the particular style and character of the city — to its 18th-century architecture as well as its status as a capital of contemporary design. Add Mandarin Oriental to this rarefied list. Spanning four classic buildings around the corner from La Scala, the Mandarin Oriental Milan went straight to the source: architect and designer Antonio Citterio, the man who’s responsible for far more than his fair share of Italy’s contemporary luxury interiors.
It’s hard to overstate just how excellent a location this is, equally close to the Duomo cathedral and to the shopping mecca that is the Golden Quadrangle. That sort of thing comes at a price, but you can trust Mandarin Oriental to ensure that you get what you pay for. The rooms are spacious and lavish, showcasing a level of attention to detail that fits right in to Northern Italy’s reverence for craftsmanship. And the suites very quickly ascend to extreme heights of luxury, with bathrooms that rival some hotel spas, and optional terraces that offer a rare perspective on a city that’s not known for open skies. There’s a proper spa, of course, so you don’t actually have to make do with your massive bath. There’s plentiful meeting and events space, which is actually useful, as chances are the M.O. is substantially more impressive than whatever corporate headquarters you’re here to visit. And the restaurant, Seta, looks beyond the Lombard classics, incorporating influences from southern Italy, from France, and (fittingly) from all across the Pacific. It’s a hotel that’s eminently worthy of both its location and its name.
Milan may be the most fashion-forward city in Italy, the couture capital, and the center of industrial progress as well—but this is still Italy, after all, and there’s always room for a little bit of ancient history. Nothing industrial or futuristic about it: the Grand Hotel et de Milan is every bit as traditionally elegant as the newly reopened La Scala theater, which is just a few steps away—and this location surely played a crucial role in the hotel’s history, as such famous names as Nureyev, Callas, and Caruso have graced its guestbook.
Most notoriously, Giuseppe Verdi spent years here, including his last—and though the hotel, like La Scala, was closed for a long renovation, the public rooms are almost exactly as he left them, filled with antique furnishings, marble floors, and Oriental rugs. Guest rooms are just as impressive, all rich fabrics and period furniture, some in nineteenth-century style, others in art deco or art nouveau, and one dedicated to Verdi himself—suite 106, the Royal suite. Of course all Milan’s modern charms are accessible—the boutiques of Via della Spiga and Via Montenapoleone are close at hand, in addition to the city’s sightseeing attractions, like Il Duomo and La Scala. There are certainly more daring, more modern hotels, smaller boutiques, and more fashionable places to lay one’s head, but if it was good enough for Verdi’s final days, it’s certainly worth seeing.
Twenty-first-century Milan is still an industrial center, but one that focuses on creative industry at the expense of manufacturing. So it’s no wonder the hospitality scene has been looking considerably brighter. Today’s business visitors, after all, are more likely to be designers, editors or buyers than managers or technicians. And if the result is that more and more Milanese hotels end up looking like the Starhotels Rosa Grand, then that’s definitely an improvement for hotel fans.
There’s nothing necessarily revolutionary here, just a swanky and stylish hotel that does its best to live up to its location in central Milan. But what a location, especially given its partnership with Italian cuisine titan Eataly, whose products grace the tables of restaurants Roses and Sfizio as well as Grand Bar & Lounge — all, of course, "by Eataly." The guidebooks will point out that you’re a stone’s throw from the Duomo, but more relevant for the purposes of most Starhotels guests is the fact that you’re just off Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, the mainstream shopping boulevard that plays the accessible foil to the rarefied boutique heights of the Golden Quadrangle. And at the end of a long shopping day the Rosa Grand is there to welcome you back. What could so easily have been a dull beige business hotel is made lively by a bit of visual sense — this sort of thing really ought to be standard.
There are no shortage of pet-friendly hotels in Milan, Italy. Here is every pet-friendly hotel in Milan on Tablet:
Grand Hotel et de Milan
SINA The Gray
Hotel Straf
Bulgari Hotel Milano
Camperio House
Rosa Grand Milano - Starhotels Collezione
Armani Hotel Milano
Starhotels E.c.ho.
Chateau Monfort
Magna Pars L'Hotel À Parfum
Aethos Milan
Mandarin Oriental Milan
If you have any questions about the rules and regulations about bringing your pet to a pet-friendly hotel, you can always contact our Travel Specialists for specific information. Below are a few frequently asked questions.
Usually a pet-friendly policy applies to dogs and cats, but sometimes only one or the other is allowed — and sometimes other types of pets (birds, lizards, unicorns), are allowed as well. Please note that certain hotels may also have a weight restriction for pets.
When we say pet-friendly, we mean a policy that allows pets -- but often there is a nightly or flat fee (sometimes called a "cleaning fee") as part of the policy.
Certain hotels specify that you may not leave your pet unattended. However, some offer daycare or dog-walking services.
Oftentimes, a pet-friendly policy will allow your pet outdoors at the hotel but not in public areas. You can always bring them a doggy bag.
Especially pet-friendly hotels provide pet amenities like food and water bowls, special beds, or treats. Be sure to contact our Travel Specialists for the most up-to-date information and specific pet-friendly policies at each hotel.
Copyright © Tablet Inc 2023. All rights reserved.
Our privacy & data usage policies.
