The Feast of Seven Fishes for Two? Here’s how.

Like spaghetti with giant meatballs and snowy excesses of cheese topping, the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve is not an Italian tradition. It’s Italian-American, which is quite a different thing. Yes, Italians do traditionally eat fish on Christmas Eve, and they like to set a festive table. But pushing yourself to seven dishes is considered a bit over-the-top in the Mother Country.

Like so many Italian-American traditions, I suspect the Seven Fishes swam out of the giddy immigrant delight of cheap, easily available food. Families who, in their native land, could only afford animal proteins a few times a year could now have them every day. They celebrated and showed off their wealth. Food writers have traced the generous excesses of Italian-American cuisine back to this fact. (Given that most 19th century immigrants shared that reality, whatever their country of origin, I’ve always suspected it’s at the root of America’s gargantuan portion sizes in comparison to the rest of the world. But, admittedly, the Italian-American table does groan a little more heavily than most.

To be honest, our family didn’t really do the Seven Fishes. In the Missouri of the 1960s and ‘70s, a 12-hour drive from the nearest ocean, fresh fish was unknown at all but the priciest of restaurants and frozen food … while becoming more common … tended to offer only breaded fish fingers. I suppose someone could have come up with a muddy catfish, but seven fish dishes would have been ludicrous. My Sicilian grandfather honoured his piscine traditions with a bit of pickled herring out of a jar while the family sat down to something meaty; usually an enormous lasagne.

As an adult living on an island on which the most inland point is only 70 miles from the sea, however, I liked the sound of the Feste. More accurately, I liked the challenge. We never entertain at Christmas Eve. We’re either out, or it’s just the two of us. Would it be possible to prepare seven distinct fish dishes in one meal, in portion sizes that didn’t overwhelm?

I’ve played around with the challenge in years past, but 2024 is the year I got closest to acing this conundrum. My pasta serving should have been a bit smaller … we were too full to properly enjoy the course after … and I spent so much time getting portion sizes right that I fell down a bit on seasoning and small touches. Much of this tasted good, but a bit of attention to detail would have made it great.

Still, I have a template for future years. If you want to try the Feast of Seven Fishes for a small group, here’s a workable menu. I split the seven into four courses.

First Course: Amuse Bouche. These were three single bites, presented on special serving spoons. My bites were an anchovy wrapped around green olives, tuna (high-quality Sicilian, in a jar) stuffed into a peppadew pepper, and bit of avocado covered with crab meat. I could have added one more here and taken one off the next course to make life easier on myself, as the squid could have been served hot or cold.

Second Course: Warm Appetisers. I put two on a plate. A griddled stuffed squid was easy, coming already prepared from the deli at Italian Continental Stores. Left cold, this could have joined the amuse bouche. That sat next to a single scallop on pea puree and a bit of grilled ham. It’s normally done on black pudding but I’d already roasted a ham for other holiday meals and wanted to re-use ingredients.

Third Course: Pasta. I made three tactical errors with my Linguini Vongole, which I haven’t made in a very, very long time. First, lacking a linguini option on my pasta maker I opted for spaghetti rather than fettuccini. The thicker noodle would have worked better. Second, I dumped the liquid from the jar of clams when I should have used it to flavour the pasta. Third, I forgot how important really good olive oil is to this dish. Essentially, it’s really delicate and easy to create something extremely bland. I rescued it with a last-minute addition of the Sicilian olive oil our landlords from Ispica sent us home with earlier this year, but it could have been better out of the pan.

Fourth Course: From the Grill. Whole sea bass done “en papillote” with fennel, lemon and dill. Another tactical error … I didn’t open the packet from the fishmonger to see that my husband had bought a whole bass instead of fillets until an hour before serving. The papillote was a last-minute rescue because I didn’t have the time or confidence to fillet the fish myself. Had I realised I had a whole fish to work with I would have gotten supplies in to bake it in sea salt, but the only sea salt in the house was fancy stuff I’d purchased in Sicily and i wasn’t going to use that as a cooking medium.

Dessert: I made a simple lime posset, which is the kind of light, citric option perfect for ending this menu. We were so stuffed that we split one and only managed half of it, but it did wrap things up nicely.

And thus ended my culinary efforts on Christmas Eve. My lovely husband took over the kitchen the next day and switched the influences from Italian to Danish. (Crab salad, roast duck with red cabbage, Christmas pudding). Followed by the traditional Danish lunch of open-faced sandwiches, beer and snaps with friends on the 27th. Those feasts gave us enough leftovers to weather the rest of a quiet holiday season. Outside, it was grey, windy and wet. Indoors, we snuggled up with good books, good video, and good food. After a busy year, it was exactly the holiday season we needed.

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.

An action packed six days validates the charms of "my England" with some special 20-somethings

I confess that I am not, and have never been, one of those women who goes all gooey-eyed over babies. I’m happy to do a little dandle, spout some praise and hand them back to a parent. Toddlers can be a bit amusing in small doses, but frankly I’m delighted to live in a country where the tradition is to give the children their “tea” and put them to bed early, so the adults can enjoy a proper dinner. Kids, for me, don’t start to get interesting until they develop personalities and can start having conversations. Even simple ones.

I love children most, however, when the ones you’ve watched grow up flower into exciting young adults. I will spare naming any of them here, as it would no doubt be mortifying and kill their social cred. I just had a magnificent visit, however, from a 24-year-old nephew that was one of the highlights of my year. Mixing in two kids who also call me “auntie” to celebrate Thanksgiving made things even better.

I was a bit worried about arranging an itinerary that would “work” for a 20-something American, but I needn’t have stressed. Our family’s love of food, cultural literacy and hunger for new experiences has descended seamlessly to a new generation. Selfishly, I wanted to put on six days that were so magnificent he’d be my advocate in convincing the whole family to come back. And, of course, I wanted to give him a proper taste of my England. Not the London tourist round, but an idea of what my life here is really like.

Here’s what we got up to.

Fresh from Heathrow, it was off to Italian Continental Stores in Maidenhead. The kid is not only a foodie, but almost entirely of Italian descent (Sicilian from our side, Genoese from his mother’s), so he was curious to see what an authentic Italian store looked like in the UK. We had a blast, and managed to be relatively moderate in our purchases … though he’d wolfed down several cannoli (snack sized) before we got home. Giving in to jet lag on Day One is never a good idea, so we dumped the groceries and headed over to my local stately home, The Vyne, which had just opened for Christmas.

We hadn’t managed to incorporate the country house experience into his family’s last visit … the agenda was too driven by London and his WW2-obsessed father … so this was his first taste of what I consider to be the ultimate expression of English identity. Take a deep respect for tradition and heritage, build a house based on the best foreign styles, fill it with centuries of collectibles brought home from trips to Europe and further afield, surround it with lavish gardens and a landscape that looks like it came out of a Claude Lorraine painting, et voila! Almost every element comes from somewhere else, but the mixture that emerges is uniquely English. The Vyne had a fun Alice in Wonderland theme for this Christmas, which was amusing, but the house even without its Christmas decorations was more than enough to keep him awake.

Dinner almost wasn’t. We pushed on to an early table at The Leather Bottle in Mattingley, currently the best gastropub in our area. After three decades in this country it’s easy to forget how alien the whole concept of the pub is to Americans. He was delighted, despite barely being able to keep his eyes open, and found the presence of venison on the menu to be wildly exotic. (He loved it.)

Day Two continued the English countryside theme with a Hawk Walk around Chawton House’s grounds. This is the fifth walk I’ve done with local falconer Anita, four with hawks and one with a barn owl, and the experience has become my top recommendation for visitors wanting to do something really special in the countryside. The hawks are as majestic as you’d expect a flying predator to be but, thanks to the motivation of food, they are also as steadfast a companion on a walk as a golden retriever. Anita puts the glove on you, instructs you in how to hold your arm to become the perfect perch, then lays bits of food on your thumb at intervals across a walk of about a mile. Meanwhile, she educates her clients on hawks, while I could fill my nephew in on the history of Chawton (where I work as a volunteer).

That evening it was off to Salisbury, where the town website claimed their Christmas market would be open. It wasn’t. But the kid got to take in the charms of the historic town centre and marvel at the outside of the cathedral before we settled in to some mulled wine at The Haunch of Venison, one of the city’s most picturesque and historic pubs. We tried a Ghurka and Indian restaurant on the way home. Gurkha Kitchen was deeply average but across the street from the train station, so made up for the food with convenience. (It was the coldest night of the year thus far; we didn’t want to be hanging out on train platforms.)

The kid had earned a lie-in by Day Three, which was going to be heavily about food prep in advance of our “Thanksgiving” dinner the next night. He slept through the pecan pie making but joined me for an introduction to Danish pastry.

That evening, the other 20-somethings arrived and we rolled into a “make your own pizza” night, firing up the pizza oven that slides inside our gas grill. I had suspected that these three, all so special to me but who hadn’t met, would get along famously. They did. So much so that the French nephew (adopted) had made plans to visit the American nephew (official) before the weekend ended.

The next day, though it was the Saturday before the actual American Thanksgiving, was our observation of the holiday. It started in traditional style, with the whole family in the kitchen eating breakfast (the pastry we’d made the day before) and doing meal prep. I’d promised to teach the adoptive niece how to make ravioli and the whole team joined in.

Later in the day we left the kitchen to Mr. Bencard and drove down to Winchester’s renown Christmas market. The weather was vile, however, pelting us with rain and sending gusts to blow umbrellas inside out. The American kid was seeing the dark side of life in England. The trials of our hike made Thanksgiving dinner even better.

I’d wanted to capture the traditional flavours of the holiday meal but not do “the usual”, as my nephew would be sitting down to that menu five days later. We started with pumpkin ravioli in a chestnut cream sauce. (Excellent, but a bit big for a starter. I’d make them as tortellini next time.) The turkey showed up as a breast made into a Wellington, cranberry and sausage stuffing replacing the usual Wellington duxelles. Sides were creamed corn and Brussels sprouts. Pecan pie finished us off, elevated by a dollop of mascarpone flavoured with crystallised ginger, freshly-ground nutmeg and cinnamon. This was such a triumph I doubt I’ll ever do plain old whipped cream or ice cream again.

In America, Thanksgiving is synonymous with football. Our version of the holiday went with rugby. The Autumn Internationals had been the foundation for the nephew’s whole visit. He’s played American football at serious levels since he was a small child, but now that his regular playing days are over I’ve been trying to get him interested in rugby. Those seeds have been germinating. He wanted to see a game live. We were able to get extra tickets to England v. Japan at Twickenham. Both the American and the French nephew loved it, while the husband enjoyed serving as rugby educator.

On the last day of the American’s visit we hit London hard for Christmas shopping and lights before theatre. It delights me that London, which was such an underwhelming destination for my first holiday season here in the mid-’90s, has upped its game so seriously that people now fly in from around Europe to take in the decorations. 

We did Piccadilly and Regent Street, both before and after dark to appreciate the flying guardian angels. We regressed to childhood wandering through Hamleys, ogled overpriced goods and dancing pine cones in Fortnum and Mason and appreciated Harrod’s full frontal lighting design. I introduced the kid to Cordings and was delighted to see his appreciation for classic country gentlemen’s wear. Bond Street after dark is probably the prettiest in London, while Annabel’s on Berkeley Square deserves a special trip. (It’s a great display but, as a member of a club just a few doors down, I’d be furious if my dues got spent on something so frivolous. They obviously have a different financial model.) We avoided Winter Wonderland and its entrance fee, but got a bit of Christmas Market magic in Leicester Square. We nurtured our Italian foodie roots with a stop at Bar Italia which the nephew proclaimed was the best coffee he’d had in a while.

We finished our evening at a box hanging over the stage at the Victoria Palace for Hamilton. His first time. My fourth. It remains a wonder of music, drama and dance, and the box was a revelation. Discounted because you lose the back corner of the stage from your line of sight, the reality is that you only miss two or three quick things but save £40 a ticket from seats equally close. And there’s something special about that private box looking down at the whole theatre. I highly recommend it.

I was quite proud of the pace I maintained when hosting 20-somethings. And of the fact that we had a great time despite a four-decade age gap. But the harsh reality was that I fell over with exhaustion after dropping the kid at Heathrow from six high-impact days. I returned home and collapsed onto the sofa. But not for long. There was a flight to Milan in my near future.

A cultural gold mine beckons in London this Christmas: Here’s my pick of the exhibitions

London always lays on a banquet of cultural offerings in the autumn, timed to grab not only late season tourists but locals looking for activities over half-term and Christmas breaks. This year I’ve taken in even more than usual, thanks to a combination of unemployment, gift memberships and exhibitions being a great space to catch up and network with former colleagues. Here’s a roundup of cultural highlights you may want to work into your Christmas plans, in my order of enjoyment.

The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence
at the Victoria and Albert Museum through 5 May 2025
This is a lush treasure trove of spectacularly beautiful objects. You could spend hours here diving into the politics, craftsmanship and social trends of the glory days of the Mughals. The time period covered is roughly 1560-1660, with art coming from northern India, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and other bits of the Middle East. You can also happily ignore all the context, simply wandering around and filling your eyes with glory. All of the giddy fantasies of The Arabian Nights are here.

The Mughals loved intricate craftsmanship. You’ll know their greatest hit, the Taj Mahal. These rooms show how that was just the tip of the decorative iceberg. From clothing to rugs, documents to furniture, cooking pots to ceramics … you get the feeling that the Mughal court couldn’t tolerate anything being simple or plain. The most stellar objects are small enough that I regretted not having reading glasses. Opulent jewellery featuring blazes of finely-set gems and bright enamel work. Weapons with animals and flowers forming their hilts. Drinking cups and tiny boxes that were probably worth more … and took longer to make … that the average citizen’s home.

Thankfully I’m now a V&A member, because this is a show I will want to return to several times.

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words
at the British Library through 2 March
I rarely get to the British Library; it’s just that little bit too far north to be on the “flight path” for anything I usually do. But I had a rare meeting in this part of town and thought I’d drop in. I found an exhibition worth going out of your way for.

The curators tap into their vast collection to bring historic women to life, from grand noblewomen and famous figures like Hildegard of Bingen to wives, mothers, merchants and craftswomen leading ordinary lives. What’s so thrilling is just how fascinating those ordinary lives are, and how vivid the voices are that come down the centuries.

We meet Trota of Salerno, a medic offering well-informed, practical advice on women’s health from the then-cosmopolitan courts of Southern Italy. Christine de Pizan stands out as the first professional female author in Europe. A fascinating “birth girdle” … essentially a belt inscribed with charms and prayers to wrap around the pregnant woman’s stomach … brings home the extreme danger of childbirth. Ippolita Maria Sforza argues forcefully for female education. Gwerful Mechain writes satirical poetry in Welsh about women’s vaginas, suggesting that it’s what men are really talking about in their poetry so she’s just getting to the point. We meet the first female printer in Europe, Estellina Conat, and the savvy banker Licoricia of Winchester, both of whom achieved success despite the double drawbacks of being female and Jewish.

Though there are a lot of texts here, as you’d expect from a library-sponsored exhibition, the show brings the Middle Ages to life with gorgeous illuminated manuscripts, a handful of complementary artefacts, atmospheric background music, short films from experts and really attractive set design. This was my biggest pleasant surprise of the autumn.

Barbie: The Exhibition
at the Design Museum through 23 February 2025

Barbie would have been just as surprising as the British Library show, had I not read some rave reviews in advance. The exhibition is a long, bubbly bath in sweet nostalgia for anyone who played with Barbie dolls as a child. It goes much deeper, however, revealing Mattel’s decades-long prowess in design and marketing.

The show starts with the creation of the iconic doll, pointing out that while her lithe form can earn feminist ire today she was meant to be a star of their movement. In a world where dolls were almost entirely babies, giving little girls a chance to practice motherhood, Barbie let their imaginations soar to new possibilities. (I think the Barbie Tikki Bar may have had a disproportionate influence on my own life.) A procession of Barbies through the years shows not only how in-tune the dolls were with the times, but how adept the company has been at shifting facial features and skin tones to include new markets. They were doing diversity before most corporate diversity trainers were born.

We think of tie-ups between seemingly unrelated companies as a modern phenomenon, but Barbie has been doing it for decades. The fashion designers who’ve had a go at dressing her are impressive, and so are all the consumer brands that have placed themselves in her life. The room full of accessories is a blast, showing the evolution of Barbie’s houses, cars, lifestyle and travel. Pure fun, with a few solid marketing lessons slipped in.

Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence c. 1504

at the Royal Academy of Arts through February 2025 

A serious exhibition for hard-core fans, marred by the RA letting too many people at once into a show that mostly requires you to get close to drawings on paper. As with the Mughals, I was kicking myself for not bringing reading glasses. The rivalry between the three Renaissance artists is familiar territory and I found nothing particularly new here. (Unlike the British Museum’s Michelangelo: The Last Decades earlier this year that revealed fascinating elements to the artist’s spirituality and closest friendships.)

The most striking part of this show is being able to compare Michelangelo’s preparatory drawings to the circular relief he sculpted from them, here shown just a few feet away. The only Michelangelo sculpture in the UK, this “tondo” is already part of the Royal Academy’s collection so nothing particularly new. The main point of the exhibition is to show the way the three men influenced each other, demonstrated through their drawings. Interesting, though I suspect all but the most dedicated art history nerds will be more entertained, while learning just as much, by watching the three-part Renaissance: The Blood and The Beauty currently on BBC iPlayer. Exact same topic, but with Charles Dance doing a compelling turn as Michelangelo. If you do come see the exhibition, watch the BBC series first to make it more relevant.

Naomi in Fashion
at the Victoria and Albert through 6 April 2025
One of the glories of museum membership is getting to poke your head into exhibitions you wouldn’t choose to pay for. Which is how I ended up flitting through this impressive collection of haute couture that supermodel Naomi Campbell has shown off on the catwalk. While popular culture isn’t my thing, and I’ve never been the size or had the money to bother with high fashion, I can’t deny that many of the dresses in here are proper works of art. There’s a peacock feather gown that’s as beautiful as anything in the Mughal exhibition, and a golden, beaded wonder that looks too fine for human consumption … more appropriate for an Elven queen in Lord of the Rings. The curators have done a clever interactive bit in the centre of the exhibition space, inviting visitors to try and get evaluated on a catwalk strut. A gaggle of teenage girls were having the time of their lives.

Silk Roads
at the British Museum through 23 February 2025

I really wanted to like this exhibition. Sadly, it left me a bit cold. The premise is a good one, though hardly original: the trading routes for luxury goods that have been operating since ancient times have cross-fertilised cultures at the same time they exchanged goods. It’s a bit of an art historical validation for the global economy. Look at what lovely things we make when we all influence each other.

Thus you get a global potpourri of stuff, from Buddhas and Chinese pottery to Viking silver and the decorative accessories of the Ancient Rus. The items on display are attractive but there are no jaw-droppers that make this a must-see. And while the concept of cross-pollination was a good one there was only one “ah ha” moment for me in the whole show; A Hindu god sculpted with Ancient Greek musculature really drove the mash up message home. Overall, I was missing a story to tie it all together. Remembering how the same museum had brought its Roman Legion show together through the story of one soldier, I thought they really missed a trick not introducing us to one or more traders who could have brought these routes to life.