Chateau Monfort

The name could hardly be more French, but the Chateau Monfort, on the fringes of the Milanese city center, isn’t your typical storybook chateau. To be fair, it isn’t your typical Milanese design hotel — or your typical anything, for that matter. It may begin with a classically French sensibility, but it’s filtered through a deranged postmodern imagination, and the result, though certainly stylish in its unique way, is about as far as you can get from the sober tones and high seriousness of Milanese luxury design.

Chateau Monfort’s public spaces are theatrical, or maybe cinematic, all atmosphere, with no time for the corporate sheen that too often dulls the high-end design hotel. And while most hotels would tone it down a bit in the rooms and suites, Chateau Monfort keeps the atmosphere cranked to eleven, mixing modern gestures and classic elements in unusual color combinations. You could call it Louis XXI — for their part, they call it “neo-Romantic.”

By any name, it’s the sort of experience you’ll likely remember for a while, which is, as you know, quite a lot of what it’s about, for us. Unforgettable personality plus five-star comforts — it’s hard to ask for much more. A full-service spa, a modern Italian restaurant, and a cellar wine bar round out the in-house attractions, while the location places you a few streets away from what might be the world’s most luxurious shopping district.