Jermyn Street's "Napoleon" is a triumph of grown-up pantomime. And quintessentially British.

The Economist recently reported that more than a quarter of applicants taking the British Citizenship test fail (scoring less than 75%), and that rate would be MUCH higher if given to existing citizens who hadn’t prepared for it. I, who have a far better grasp of British history and politics than average, managed only 50% on the newspaper’s sample. Many argue that the glorified pub quiz is a poor litmus test for life in the UK.

I have a better one.

Prospective citizens should have to attend at least three Christmas pantomimes and then give a convincing oral presentation on what this unique art form, and British people’s fascination with it, says about life in this country. Trust me, this is far better preparation for settling here than knowing who William III beat at the Battle of the Boyne (got that one right) or how long you can drive on a foreign license while resident in the UK (whoops).

Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime at the Jermyn Street Theatre was a bit of a British graduation ceremony for me. Despite almost 30 years in this country, approaching 20 as a citizen, this is the first time I’ve attended a performance in which I comfortably participated in all the expected call-and-response, laughed at all of the jokes and didn’t pause to consider just how bizarre the whole tradition is. Then again, this clever, historically inspired panto wasn’t the typical production.

First, a quick overview for non-British readers. Pantomime, usually shortened to “panto”, is a British stage production put on around the Christmas holidays. Most Brits will have grown up going to at least one a season with their families since before they can remember; this is as essential to holiday traditions as a visit to Santa Claus. Long before Shrek and Toy Story perfected the art, panto managed to present entertainment that worked on two levels: base, silly humour for the kids also holds innuendo and double entendre for the grownups. The humour is normally of the wince-inducing, joke-inside-the-Christmas-cracker kind, but some versions, like Jermyn Street’s and a Stephen Fry-scripted Cinderella I saw years ago, are more sophisticated. But even these are still silly; think Blackadder vs. Mr. Bean.

But there’s more. Gender-swapping is essential: the heroic young lad is usually played by a girl while at least one female character … the “pantomime dame” … is a man in drag. There is nothing sexual about this and the swapping pre-dates “woke” issues by centuries. (In fact, there are many critics who are irritated by a growing trend in female impersonators playing the dames. They are too good at the female roles, taking the intended absurdity of the swap out of proceedings.) There are always musical numbers, usually with new lyrics laid over floor-filling pop tunes that everyone will know already. A handful of classics come back year after year: Cinderella, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk. While the core plots are staples, they’re regularly adapted to include references to modern trends and news. (In the same way modern productions adapt Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.) 

Stars often turn up in main roles; sometimes big ones but usually TV celebrities having their moment in the sun. Audience participation through well known call-and-response patterns is essential, and there’s usually a bit where some kids get pulled up on stage. For some reason nobody has ever been able to explain there’s usually a pantomime cow, even if there’s no bovine element to the plot. Presumably because there’s nothing funnier than two people sharing a cow suit?

Brits, who have grown up with this and find it all completely normal, have no grasp of just how strange it all is. Most foreigners will probably find their first panto exposure to be a jarring revelation of just how alien and slightly disturbing the UK can be beneath its tweed and waxed cotton-surface. Thus my citizenship test suggestion.

Napoleon included all the classic elements with a remarkably witty script, rapid-fire banter and a plot that got funnier the more you knew about the Napoleonic wars. (The Family Bencard was in heaven.) There was even a cow gag, though this involved milking machines and kids from the audience rather than a bovine costume.

The fanciful plot made Bridgerton look like a documentary: panto villain Napoleon was in league with the ghost of Marie Antoinette, our “hero” was proto-feminist Princess Georgiana who pretended to be a boy to go on adventures, Wellington (played by a woman) dreamed of giving up war and making beef pies, and this King George III gave the scene-stealing character in Hamilton a run for his money. The channel-crossing adventure involved a hunt for the severed hand of Lord Nelson, which was the only way to get into a cache of treasure beneath one of the London bridges. Which, naturally, led to a performance of Waterloo near the end.

Utterly mad. Completely delightful. My kind of panto. It seems they take this Blackadder-style approach every year. Last year was a pantomime take on Odysseus. Hard to even imagine. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next year. I think we might have just established a new Bencard family tradition.

Milan’s cultural wonders deserve more attention than the average tourist gives them

Milan may be Italy’s richest city and its business hub, but when it comes to tourism it’s an also-ran. People may arrive here, but they’re more likely to be in transit through town en route to Venice or Florence. They might pop in to da Vinci’s last supper, or use a hotel here as a base for a day trip to Como, but they’re unlikely to linger.

That is a shame. 

Milan is as rich in history and cultural gems as any of the more popular destinations. Though it’s lacking in rustic charm and feels more modern than other Italian towns, the very fact that it’s less dependant on tourism than its neighbours makes it more authentic than the staples of the tourist route.

Most visitors start with the Last Supper, as well they should. It one of the great masterpieces of Western Art. Seeing it takes long-range planning. The official website opens sales for three months’ worth of tickets at a time, and they quickly sell out. We booked our tickets for early December on the first day of their availability, 24 September, when tickets for November, December and January became available. The official website does not publish those drop dates very far in advance. Your best bet is to follow them on social media and check regularly; they announced new ticket availability on their Instagram feed about two weeks before the date.

Adult tickets are €15. You may be able to get in without advance planning, but it will cost you a lot more. A handful of official tour guides get blocks of tickets they resell as part of packages, but these tend to go for well over €100 per person. Sure, you’re getting a guide and a tour of a few other things nearby, but it’s a huge difference. Go for the standard admission unless a last-minute trip gives you no other option.

So what’s the big deal? Da Vinci anticipates the immediacy of film by 400 years, dropping us into a moment of high-tension live action that’s been freeze-framed. If you need proof of just how revolutionary this painting was, you only have to turn around and look at Giovanni Donato da Montorfano’s Crucifixion on the opposite wall. It’s beautiful, and it was painted at roughly the same time, but it’s almost cartoon-like. It’s bland and devoid of emotion in comparison to Leonardo’s masterpiece across the hall

Visits last 15 minutes, admit 35 people at a time and are orchestrated with a rigorous efficiency that may cause you to re-evaluate Italian stereotypes. You will turn up a bit before your booked time, go through the security screening, then pass through two air-locked rooms. The high tech procession allows the curators to control exactly the temperature and humidity of the old refectory that the Last Supper decorates, and while you’re waiting you can read useful information about what you’re about to see. The painting’s history has been precarious. Most people know the stories of Leonardo’s experimental fresco technique starting to fade almost as soon as he completed the work, and of Napoleon’s troops abusing the space, but not that the whole room was almost destroyed in WW2. Photos of its wall standing in the open air surrounded by rubble are striking. 

 Recent renovations have worked wonders and the strict visiting procedure makes the experience a joy. In so much of Italy you’re jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with others trying to get a glimpse of the star sights. Here, there’s plenty of space to drink it all in and sit in wonder before you’re moved on. While true art lovers could spend hours in there, 15 minutes seemed the perfect amount of time for most people to appreciate the details without getting bored.

Sadly, I watched most visitors come and go from the Last Supper without ever checking out the church next door. It is the anchor of the monastery complex da Vinci was working to beautify. Santa Maria delle Grazie was a Dominican church and was the burial place of the Renaissance ruling family, the Sforzas, ergo the artistic firepower lavished on the place. It’s had as hard a time as its refectory, with the tombs being moved out by later rulers and the French looting its best painting. (Titian’s altarpiece of Christ Receiving His Crown of Thorns is in the Louvre these days.) But nobody could move Bramante’s dome, which is as much of a masterpiece on the architectural side as the Last Supper is to painting. It’s innovative and unusual; Bramante was introducing Renaissance style to Milan. Outside it’s a curious mash-up of plaster and brickwork, arcades and neoclassical windows. Inside it’s clearly drawing inspiration from the Pantheon with its coffers, but Bramante throws in all sorts of other classical shapes. It’s an elegant study in geometric forms.

The next most visited place in town has to be the Duomo and the streets immediately around it, for good reason. Milan’s cathedral has one of the most gorgeous exteriors in Europe, a fantasy of gothic spires and fantastic statues. It’s even better now that it’s been cleaned and really does resemble an ornate wedding cake. Walk all of the way around it to appreciate the variety of sculpture. The cathedral wasn’t officially finished until 1965 and there are some surprisingly modern gargoyles around the back. Skip the interior if you are short on time. Like many European churches it’s a mix of different time periods and styles, but the Milanese manage to be particularly graceless and heavy-handed putting it all together. The quality of some of the art in here is shockingly second rate, given the wealth of the great and the good in town.

I think it might be the ugliest cathedral interior in Europe. The strange, chunky gothic capitals on top on the ponderous supporting pillars are particularly awful.  It’s not just my opinion. The famous British art critic John Ruskin wrote that the cathedral ”steals from every style in the world, and every style spoiled.” The round classical temple sheathed in patterned silver that serves as a high altar is a bit of a redeeming feature for me, but it clashes so badly with its surroundings it’s hard to take seriously. See what you think.

The streets immediately around the cathedral are full of elegant boutiques and luxury brands, most notably the cross-shaped Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. This is surely one of the most beautiful shopping malls in the world, full of elegant restaurants as well as shops beneath its glass barrel vaults. You’ll pay a premium for anything here, of course, but if you want to see and be seen this is the spot.

Cross through the Galleria to the Piazza della Scala to see the famous statue of da Vinci. He’s facing one of the most famous opera houses in the world, the Teatro Alla Scala. Our timing was terrible. It was opening weekend of the new season, with performances restricted to patrons and no tours taking place to facilitate the national broadcast of opening night. Opera in Italy is a big deal. But under normal circumstances there are regular tours of the interior and tickets for performances are easily bookable via their website. Prices are much closer to London’s Royal Opera House, however, than to the bargain that is the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

My favourite cultural experience of the weekend, after getting one-on-one with Leonardo, was a leisurely ramble around Castello Sforzesco. This is one of the largest castles in Europe, a quintessentially Renaissance assertion that something can be both lethal and beautiful. It’s free to walk beneath its massive gates and explore its lovely courtyards, but you’ll have to ante up €5 to get inside. This has to be the best value for money in Milan.

Technically, there are nine different museums here, all entered by this one ticket. The scale and range of the collection is on par with any of the major museums of Europe, and in many cases the rooms and their painted ceilings are as interesting as the collections displayed within them. It would take at least a full day to walk through everything, many more to view the collections in depth.

With only a few hours, we started with one of the museum’s great treasures: an unfinished pietà by Michelangelo. This has been restored relatively recently and moved to a new display space that reflects its importance; it has a whole hall to itself and the explanatory displays about it and its artist. We wandered through the “Museum of Ancient Art”, which is a bit of a misnomer. It’s mostly sculpture from late antiquity through the high Renaissance, plus an armoury. The arms and armour collection is small compared to those in Vienna or London’s Wallace Collection, but it’s worth checking out just for the gorgeous display of Ludovico Sforza on his horse, both recreated in lifelike detail and dressed in their parade armour. This is also the part of the castle that has the most impressive rooms, including a large chamber frescoed by Leonardo to give the impression of being deep in a magical wood. The painting is in terrible shape but you can make out enough to be impressed. Restorers are trying to recover more.

The Applied Arts Collection is an Italian equivalent to the V&A. Objects range from the Middle Ages to modern times, with much from the Sforza family making the Renaissance galleries predictably strong. There are whole interiors pulled out of buildings, furniture, lush decorative objects, glassware and jewellery. It’s so big that at one point we got lost and drifted into the painting collection. By this point we were too exhausted to even contemplate the hundreds of metres of canvas-filled galleries ahead of us … despite the prospect of some Caravaggios … and doubled back, using my bad knee as an excuse to talk the guards into letting us go out the entrance. We didn’t even touch the Egyptian Museum, the print collection, prehistoric stuff and special rotating exhibitions.

That was the extent of our sightseeing time but was only the tip of the Milanese cultural iceberg. The Brera Art Museum and the Basilica of Saint Ambrogio would have been next on my list. I wouldn’t have minded a day trip down to Pavia and its magnificent Certosa, of which I have misty but dazzling memories from childhood. Lake Maggiore and its magnificent palace on Isola Bella lies in the opposite direction. And I wouldn’t mind a much deeper exploration of the local wine scene. 

Clearly, Milan is not just for business trips and getting to other places in Italy. It’s a tourist destination in its own right.

Two Milanese restaurants show off the city’s talent at meaty comfort food paired with top local wines

Milan is one of those places that feels like they should put “vegetarians beware” signs up at the borders. After spending three weeks this year in Italy’s fruit-and-veg-rich south, I found Lombardy’s meat and carb addiction a bit of a shock. The menus, like the miles, are closer to Germany than Naples. 

If you like veal, however, you’re in luck. Forget about the greens and stuff yourself with all the milk-fed vitello cotoletta, milanese and ossobuco you can. Have a salad when you get home.

Ossobuco on a bed of risotto milanese is the most iconic dish of the region. It’s one of those deceptively simple recipes that’s very easy to get wrong. Veal shank, slow cooked in stock, carrots, celery, onions and garlic (there are your vegetables!), with the marrow from the bones thickening and bringing it all together as it cooks down. Get it wrong and it’s a tough, gelatinous mess. Done well, it’s a melt-in-your-mouth triumph of meaty goodness.

To taste this classic at its best, book a table at Trattoria all’Antica on the Via Montevideo, on the northern edge of the Navigli district a short walk from the Coni Zugna tram station. This is a small but elegant local place with classy, modern interiors and a short menu of regional specialities. It’s run by husband and wife team Luca and Susana Conti, and you feel their close personal involvement in everything. There’s the printed menu, but this is also the kind of place you can just put yourself in the hands of the waiter who will roll out Luca’s specials of the evening. We dined there twice and appeared to be the only tourists in a place packed full of locals both nights, which I figure is always a good sign. The food was so spectacular that before we’d finished our main courses on the first night, we asked if we could book another dinner within our three-night stay.

The ossobuco was perfection, and I can validate that having tried a more famous restaurant’s version the night before. (More of that below.) The veg had melted and coalesced into a thick and flavourful sauce. The meat was sweet and tender, any hint of fat rendered away. Its pillow of risotto was a textbook combination of al dente bite and creamy sauce, spiked with a pleasant hit of saffron. This is the comfort food of your dreams.

There was much more that was worthy of note at this gem of a restaurant. On our first visit the waiter let us know that it was the very end of white truffle season, and there was a little of that magical ingredient in the kitchen that could be incorporated into a variety of dishes. Truffles aren’t for mushroom haters or those on a tight budget. The concentrated essence of funghi, like the distillation of a rich forest floor, but in the case of the white truffles with an astonishing delicacy and nuance. They’re also one of the most expensive raw ingredients in the world, so wiser diners than us might have asked the price before ordering the home-made tagliatelle with truffles and cream sauce. We didn’t. And I don’t regret it, despite the €35 sticker shock. Another example here of the guiding philosophy of great Italian cuisine: if your ingredients are top quality, you don’t need to combine too many to create greatness. Just let the essential elements sing.

To accompany the luxury pasta, our waiter introduced us to Franciacorta. While Italy produces a lot of sparkling whites … most notably Prosecco … this Lombardian DOCG is Italy’s closest competitor to Champagne. Generally made with the same grapes, grown in similar conditions, using the same production methods, but with the fruit sitting on its lees for a minimum of 18 months versus champagne’s 15. The Italians say their slower maturation process makes for a more flavourful wine; I couldn’t argue with the glass in my hand. The bargain €7 a glass also helped balance the truffle splurge.

On our first night at Antica I’d opted for the cotoletta on the waiter’s recommendation, and it was extraordinary. Essentially a lightly-breaded and pan-fried veal chop, it’s so easy to dry these out I often consider it too risky to order. No need to fear here. I honestly don’t know how they preserved that much moisture in the meat, and got such an intense contrast between the dry, crispy coating and the succulent interior. The instinctive reaction with breaded meats is to serve a sauce; it would have been pointless here.

Other delights across our two meals included a variety of local appetisers, beef tagliata, a classic yet feather-light chestnut tart and our introduction to Roero, a variety of red wine from neighbouring Piedmont made with Nebbiolo.

Our hotel’s top recommendation for local restaurants was Osteria del Binari, and it came a close second. This place is far bigger and has been a culinary anchor in the Navigli neighbourhood since the 1970s. Its roots go deeper, however. It started life as a social club for people who worked on the railways (“binari” are railway platforms). It’s next to the tracks leading into one of Milan’s oldest stations and the interiors have a classic late 19th century vibe. If you grew up in the United States, as I did, this fusion of dark wood furniture, Victorian lighting, jewel tones and art nouveau decorative touches is exactly what you think a posh Italian restaurant is supposed to look like. While Antica has perhaps 50 covers, Binari has hundreds spread across a warren of different rooms. We were out in the winter garden, essentially an old Victorian-era glasshouse with stone floors and fireplaces on either end. The rail tracks lie just beyond. This place wins hands down on atmosphere.

There was a bigger menu here. More vegetables. More seafood options. Some gorgeous stuffed pasta. Dishes presented in a “chef-ier” way. Bigger wine list. But in a taste-to-taste comparison the flavours were just a bit less impressive. My ossobuco had a very slight sheen of unincorporated fat on its surface. The waiters and the sommelier were efficient and businesslike, but lacked the chatty interaction of those at Antica. Binari just felt a bit more functional, but that’s not surprising from a place serving four times the diners. 

While Antica is my first choice, I’d happily return to Binari … especially in the summer when that conservatory would be flooded with light and there’s a garden where club members once played bocce. Whatever the choice, our two restaurants supported the idea that dining out is reason enough to spend a bit of time in Milano. 

But one shouldn’t live on great food alone. There’s culture in Milan to delight your eyes as thoroughly as these two places pleased the stomach. I’ll cover sightseeing highlights in my next article.

Milan’s improved since my last visit. Go for the year-round fun, not Christmas markets.

Germany is the logical destination for a weekend break dedicated to Christmas markets, and I wanted my husband to experience something like the giddy fun the Girls’ Trip had in Munich last December. But this was going to be the last trip in my Big Birthday Year of Italy. Thus I opted for a non-traditional pre-Christmas weekend in Milan. 

The flights were cheap, we could use loyalty points for the hotel and it was an easy drive for our dear friends to drive down from their home on Lake Annecy to meet us. The Milanese PR also said they had Christmas Markets. So why not?

The verdict? If Christmas markets are your prime objective, stick to places north of the Alps. There was a pleasant spread of stalls around the Cathedral, typical of most German-style markets with a bit more emphasis on food. Given that Milan is the home of the Christmas staple, panettone, I was hoping to find lots of artisan makers hawking special varieties. Nope. The market promoted as the biggest in Milan, running around three sides of the Sforza Castle, had little Christmas theming. Most of its stalls were reminiscent of a low-end Saturday town market. Despite there being little to tempt, the crowds were fierce.

Decorations around the city centre are pleasant, with the most picturesque scenes being in front of the Duomo and in the Galleria, but there’s nothing extraordinary. A further drawback is likely to be the weather, which in Milan in December has a fair chance of being cold, wet and misty. You’ll get the same weather with better markets and decorations in London.

However, if you think of Christmas theming as a small bonus and concentrate on the bigger picture, it’s obvious that Milan is a fantastic location for a quick weekend break. With its easy transport links, sophisticated social scene, dignified architecture, phenomenal restaurants, upscale shops and a shortlist of cultural blockbusters, there’s enough here to give you a great four days without overwhelming you.

It’s been years since I’d been here; at least 17, given that this is its first appearance in Bencard’s Bites. All of my adult knowledge of the place was work-related. I spent a lot of time here on a project in the late ‘90s and had returned after that for several conferences. I always found it pleasant enough but a bit boring compared to Tuscany and points further south. But I had roots here. I’d first set foot in Italy … and in Europe … when I spent a summer here living with a family in the hills outside of the metropolis.

Modern Milan has changed significantly from my memories. The public transport system is now fabulous, with frequent trams above ground and an underground system that … as of a line extension completed just a few months ago … whisks you straight from Linate to the centre of town for less than £3. The Duomo, and much of the centre of town, has benefitted from a huge cleanup campaign and sparkles with clean, pale marble facades.

The most significant change from a tourist perspective, however, is the restoration of the Navigli area, which was a rough, rarely-considered industrial zone when I last knew the city. Now, what was once the docks has become as popular with visitors as the central streets around the Duomo. 

The geographically savvy amongst you will wonder at my use of “docks’, as Milan is neither on the coast nor can boast a major river. From the Middle Ages, however, it was home to an impressive network of canals linking it to the rest of Northern Italy, and they all converged in what’s now known as Navigli. Warehouses, workshops and later train lines followed. These days most of the canals have been filled in, but the Naviglio Grande has become a stately watercourse lined with imposing, restored buildings now hosting restaurants, bars, galleries and quirky shops. 

The canal is the heart of the district but the attractions sprawl down streets branching from either side. It’s become the go-to place for nights out, a hub of noteworthy restaurants, and I suspect is also quite a fashionable place to live. Even on a grim Friday night in early December, the whole area was heaving. Bar hopping here on a clement May evening would doubtless be a non-stop party.

Cocktail bar Backdoor 43 is a glowing example of what makes this district so special. Inspired by American speakeasies of Prohibition days, you gain entry when you knock and a small hatch to one side slides open to ask your business. You’re unlikely to get in without a reservation, though you can order cocktails to go through the hatch. Inside is a space about the size of a walk-in closet, with room for up to four. You book for an hour, and in that time you enjoy the services of a private bartender who discusses your tastes and comes up with custom cocktails for each of you. In a typical hour, you’ll probably each have two. We were impressed with our bartender, who seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject and came up with six radically different drinks for the three of us across our time slot. Only once did an attempt fail to delight the drinker; he immediately dumped that attempt at no charge and came up with another option that hit the mark. 

The tiny space is beautifully decorated with polished dark wood panelling and shelves from an old pharmacy, towering to a ceiling decorated with a world map far above your head. Careful design means the bartender can reach scores of different options, including all sort of liqueurs decanted into oversized test tubes. A fabulous jazz soundtrack plays behind it all, though you can change the music to anything you fancy. This experience was as much a highlight of the trip. as DaVinci’s Last Supper; these are the two things you simply must book in advance. Backdoor 43 is actually an adjunct to the Mag Cafe next door, so if you wanted to continue drinking or get a bite to eat, one assumes the quality remains as high. We were off to a dinner reservation elsewhere. I’ll cover food in a separate article.

Our hotel, the Mercure Milano Solari, was on the edge of the district. It’s a slightly odd place that falls short of the usual Accor chain standards: marble floors and hard modern furniture might be stylish, but the lack of soft furnishings combined with intermittent heat meant a cold stay; the lobby and dining area/bar feel more like amenities in an office building than a hotel; the front desk messed up both our and our friends’ reservation, in the latter case leaving the exhausted couple waiting and potentially roomless for too long at 1 am, despite a confirmed reservation. A weird layout, broad variation in room designs and two different entrances makes me suspect this is a converted apartment building rather than a purpose-built hotel.

And yet, I’d probably stay here again. Why? Beside the loyalty programme points: location, location, location. It’s a 300 metre walk to the Metro station (Coni Zugna) that whisks you direct to Linate in about 25 minutes. Trams heading into the city centre are a short stumble from the front door. Depending on traffic, the Duomo is as close as 10 minutes. On foot, that same 10 minutes will take you to the Navigli Grande. The number of top quality restaurants between the hotel and the canal is staggering; you could probably eat in a different place every day for a month without ever needing any transport besides your feet. 

Like any location in Italy, dining is as important as history or culture. It is, of course, a component of both of those things. So coming next: the food.