It is always tempting to time a trip to Milan when there is a glamorous event going on. Friends from Italy tell me to plan for Design Week and Salone del Mobile in April, Fashion Week in September or a celebrity gala concert at La Scala. But I am here in decidedly unfashionable, off-season winter, to avoid the crowds and discover an alternative Milano.
I won’t be joining the long queues to see the Duomo, nor booking months in advance online to squeeze in a visit to Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper.
My first big surprise comes straight away as I arrive at the imposing Milano Centrale train station, for years an edgy no-go zone. Today, goods warehouses behind the train lines have been transformed into the funky Mercato Centrale, a dazzling marketplace of street-food stalls where you can feast on artisanal pizza and panini, handmade pasta smothered with aromatic white truffles and even take a swift cooking course. All that before even checking into the hotel.
To check out Milan’s lesser-known creative scene, I head out of the historic centre, only a quick hop on the Metro to the former working-class Isola neighbourhood. Fabricca del Vapore is a sprawling cultural hub housed in a redbrick industrial complex that once manufactured trains and trams. Now, the venue hosts theatre and music performances, experimental cinema, exhibitions and creative laboratories.
Next door, the grandly named Tempio del Futuro Perduto is actually an abandoned transport depot recently recognised as an independent avant-garde collective for emerging young artists committed to eco-sustainable activities.
Isola’s third hub is a former electric generator, converted in 2021 into the ADI Design Museum to showcase the best of Made in Italy. It exhibits everything from Marzocco espresso machines to a vintage red Ferrari.
I notice that every street running off ADI is lined with bustling Asian supermarkets, boutiques and restaurants, forming Milan’s vibrant Chinatown. Via Paolo Sarpi is a gold mine of street-food locales that make me think I'm in Hong Kong, serving everything from wonton noodles to dim sum and beef dumplings. There's even a venerable Italian butcher’s shop, la Macelleria Sirtori, that still sells meat but has a Chinese chef cooking up a storm for diners sitting at a communal table in the old cold room.
Milan’s other cool, under-the-radar neighbourhood is Porta Venezia, the buzzing multi-ethnic quarter around one of the arched city gates. Just before arriving at the ancient Porta, any visitor with a family should stop at the Museo di Storia Naturale.
From the outside, this ornate neo-Gothic palazzo immediately reminds me of London’s landmark Natural History Museum. While its dinosaur collection may pale in comparison, I'm enchanted by a whole floor devoted to exotic taxidermy tableaux filled with lifelike stuffed animals that mirror the extravagant jungle paintings of Le Douanier Rousseau.
Meanwhile, Porta Venezia has long been a home for Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants settling in Milan, and friendly, affordable African eateries such as Adulis and Warsa have been here for more than 30 years, serving their signature zigni dish, spicy meat and vegetables communally eaten on injera flatbread.
Here, I also stumble upon the dazzling emporium of Italian designer Lisa Corti. She was raised and influenced in colonial Eritrea, a different world from the exclusive designs of Milan’s haute-couture Fashion District, but her bold multicoloured textiles are equally irresistible.
Chef Diego Rossi, whose Trippa trattoria in the gentrified Porta Romana neighbourhood is one the hottest tables in town, describes Milan's dining scene as “curious”. “Everyone can survive here, from fine dining to street food, as long as you are sufficiently creative, ever-changing, to keep your diners interested,” he tells me. “So there is room for the three-star Michelin fine-dining restaurant to the old traditional trattoria or today’s latest taste-of-the-day, revisited pizza.”
Rossi's cuisine certainly enchants foodies who flock to Trippa’s cool dining room every night. The menu is always changing, with dishes veering from adventurous offal – duck gizzard or sweetbreads – to seasonal vegetarian recipes, pairing roasted pumpkin with melted Pannerone di Lodi cheese or grilled cabbage and char salad smothered with creamy pear sauce.
Most recently, one of Italy’s most celebrated chefs, Gennaro Esposito, arrived in Milan from his native south to open the Nuovo Caruso Bistro right in the heart of the Fashion District. He created it to be “somewhere democratic, accessible for locals and tourists alike”, he tells me.
Esposito's exceptional dishes use the finest ingredients, especially the signature Gran Tour della Verdura: celeriac with olives and fennel, raw vegetables dip, beetroot carpaccio, a creamy lentil soup. “I don’t think the Milanese eat enough vegetables so I will try to change that,” he says with a smile.
He is correct in that you cannot escape meat here. So before heading back to the Central Station I plan a final foodie stop near the crowds teeming around Piazza del Duomo, but in a deserted side street with not a tourist in sight.
Here, at the old-fashioned Trattoria Milanese dal 1933, they serve a menu that has barely changed in 90 years. The classic saffron yellow Risotto and gigantic veal Cotoletta alla Milanese are still delicious. And it turns out the chef, Ahmet Metwely, is a quietly-spoken Egyptian expatriate who has been running the kitchens here for 40 years, discretely serving the movers and shakers of the fashion and business world their favourite traditional dishes.
Milan never ceases to surprise.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
RedCrow Intelligence Company Profile
Started: 2016
Founders: Hussein Nasser Eddin, Laila Akel, Tayeb Akel
Based: Ramallah, Palestine
Sector: Technology, Security
# of staff: 13
Investment: $745,000
Investors: Palestine’s Ibtikar Fund, Abu Dhabi’s Gothams and angel investors
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight (Wednesday), BeIN Sports
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
The biog
Prefers vegetables and fish to meat and would choose salad over pizza
Walks daily as part of regular exercise routine
France is her favourite country to visit
Has written books and manuals on women’s education, first aid and health for the family
Family: Husband, three sons and a daughter
Fathiya Nadhari's instructions to her children was to give back to the country
The children worked as young volunteers in social, education and health campaigns
Her motto is to never stop working for the country
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
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WOMAN AND CHILD
Director: Saeed Roustaee
Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi
Rating: 4/5
The years Ramadan fell in May
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Rest
(Because Music)
MATCH INFO
Pakistan 106-8 (20 ovs)
Iftikhar 45, Richardson 3-18
Australia 109-0 (11.5 ovs)
Warner 48 no, Finch 52 no
Australia win series 2-0
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Results
6.30pm Al Maktoum Challenge Round-3 Group 1 (PA) US$100,000 (Dirt) 2,000m, Winner Bandar, Fernando Jara (jockey), Majed Al Jahouri (trainer).
7.05pm Meydan Classic Listed (TB) $175,000 (Turf) 1,600m, Winner Well Of Wisdom, William Buick, Charlie Appleby.
7.40pm Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 2,000m, Winner Star Safari, Mickael Barzalona, Charlie Appleby.
8.15pm Handicap (TB) $135,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner Moqarrar, Fabrice Veron, Erwan Charpy.
8.50pm Nad Al Sheba Trophy Group 2 (TB) $300,000 (T) 2,810m, Winner Secret Advisor, William Buick, Charlie Appleby.
9.25pm Curlin Stakes Listed (TB) $175,000 (D) 2,000m, Winner Parsimony, William Buick, Doug O’Neill.
10pm Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 2,000m, Winner Simsir, Ronan Whelan, Michael Halford.
10.35pm Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 1,400m, Winner Velorum, Mickael Barzalona, Charlie Appleby.
About Karol Nawrocki
• Supports military aid for Ukraine, unlike other eurosceptic leaders, but he will oppose its membership in western alliances.
• A nationalist, his campaign slogan was Poland First. "Let's help others, but let's take care of our own citizens first," he said on social media in April.
• Cultivates tough-guy image, posting videos of himself at shooting ranges and in boxing rings.
• Met Donald Trump at the White House and received his backing.
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Basquiat in Abu Dhabi
One of Basquiat’s paintings, the vibrant Cabra (1981–82), now hangs in Louvre Abu Dhabi temporarily, on loan from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
The latter museum is not open physically, but has assembled a collection and puts together a series of events called Talking Art, such as this discussion, moderated by writer Chaedria LaBouvier.
It's something of a Basquiat season in Abu Dhabi at the moment. Last week, The Radiant Child, a documentary on Basquiat was shown at Manarat Al Saadiyat, and tonight (April 18) the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is throwing the re-creation of a party tonight, of the legendary Canal Zone party thrown in 1979, which epitomised the collaborative scene of the time. It was at Canal Zone that Basquiat met prominent members of the art world and moved from unknown graffiti artist into someone in the spotlight.
“We’ve invited local resident arists, we’ll have spray cans at the ready,” says curator Maisa Al Qassemi of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi's Canal Zone Remix is at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Thursday April 18, from 8pm. Free entry to all. Basquiat's Cabra is on view at Louvre Abu Dhabi until October
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Final scores
18 under: Tyrrell Hatton (ENG)
- 14: Jason Scrivener (AUS)
-13: Rory McIlroy (NIR)
-12: Rafa Cabrera Bello (ESP)
-11: David Lipsky (USA), Marc Warren (SCO)
-10: Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Chris Paisley (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG), Fabrizio Zanotti (PAR)
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LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
