11.11.2019

Tips & trends

Wandering around designer cafés

More and more major fashion brands are associated with cafes and restaurants today. When you visit these unique food destinations, meals, pastries and cocktails get out of the kitchen as if they were in a haute couture runway. Every detail is curated with style and elegance for an unforgettable experience. Let's get to know some of these fashion designer's bars and restaurants.

Our generation is obsessed with food, signature chef dishes and mise en place: Instagram daily posts dedicated to food are around 50 million a day. We shall therefore not be surprised to see big fashion brands entering the restaurant scene to get advantage of the trend. We all know that these luxury brands offer much more than the sartorial mastery behind their beautiful clothes: their greatest art is to transport us to an unmistakable and irreplaceble atmosphere. 

Prada and Ralph Lauren have created their restaurants' concepts around the legacy of a long tradition. The first has done it taking over Pasticceria Marchesi in Milan, which just opened a second location in London. This café and bakery is a symbol of the Milanese style since 1824 when it first opened its doors. Elegant atmosphere, impeccable service, artisan taste and refined creativity haven't changed after the Prada group decided to join the brand, bringing a contemporary touch through its distinctive prints and Miuccia Prada's favorite green.

When you get a table at the Polo Bar, or at Ralph's and at RL (respectively in New York, London and Paris, and Chicago) you feel like you are at one of the great thoroughbred horse races, with leather seats and shiny brass counters and hooks. Equestrian aesthetics has inspired the furniture and the colours on the walls. These are places to rediscover old-fashioned club's atmosphere and to eat the best of traditional American dishes.

And if you want another big apple fashion and food destination, you can not miss the Blue Box Café on the fifth avenue. Here you can really "have breakfast at Tiffany's": the turquoise colour, which is the hallmark of this historic jewellery and design brand, can be found in the precious marbles on the walls as well as in the comfortable velvet design chairs.  

Getting back to London you can visit Thomas's, the right place to enjoy a lunch or dinner in pure Burberry style. Beige is the dominant colour in these restaurant where you can also buy products from the famous English brand. After all, with e-commerce sales constantly growing, fashion brands need to find other meeting points to accomodate every taste. 

And talking about beige, Beige is the name of the restaurant in Tokyo born from the collaboration between Chanel and Alain Ducasse. It is located on the top floor of Chanel's flagship store where you can find refined works of art intended to give a touch of elegance to the bright and naturally chic environment. 

Finally last week Gucci Osteria in Florence obtained its first Michelin star. This restaurant, which is an unmissable stop for lovers of beauty and Massimo Bottura's style cuisine, is located inside the Gucci Garden, museum of the fashion house, within the frame of the Palazzo della Mercanzia overlooking Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Here, too, long tradition and innovation meet to create an eclectic and refined environment with painted tiles, terracottas on the walls, white tablecloths and antique chairs. 

This is a new take on fusion food... where the best of fashion and gourmet destinations get together.