The new Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Milan will open its doors for the first time on 7 September.
The new roastery will operate out of a converted post office in Palazzo della Poste on the Piazza Cordusio.
Howard Schultz, Founder of Starbucks, credits a trip to Milan in 1983 for inspiring the company that became Starbucks.
Starbucks calls the roastery an “intricate masterpiece of Italian craftsmanship and coffee innovation”. Ten features it highlights include:
- A round roastery theatre
Milan is the third Starbucks Reserve Roastery in the world – the Seattle roastery opened in 2014, and Shanghai in 2017 – but this is the first where customers can move all the way around the bright green Scolari roaster and watch every step of the coffee roasting process.
- The dancing lady
The epicentre of the new roastery is a 6.7-metre bronze roasting cask that periodically unfolds and rotates, like a blooming flower, to give customers a rare glimpse of the de-gassing phase of the roasting process.
- A jewel box of colour
While the Seattle and Shanghai roasteries used rich, dark tones in their ineterior, Starbucks says the Milan roastery is an explosion of colour. This includes marble in jewel tones and a roaster and clacker board display in vibrant green, inspired by the coffee card for Starbucks Reserve Ethiopia Kayan Mountain Farm.
- Hidden history
The entrance wall of the roastery features a floor-to-ceiling, engraved brass story of Starbucks. Guests can view the wall as it is or, with the help of their mobile device, can experience the wall in augmented reality, giving them access to even more multimedia artefacts about the company’s history and the art and science of coffee.
- Radiant marble
In a nod to the marble countertops featured in espresso bars across Milan, all of the bars in the roastery are marble and warm to touch, thanks to radiant heat inside. They were carved from the same 30-tonne block of Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble from a Tuscan quarry.
- Artistry underfoot
The roastery’s mosaiced marble floor is handcrafted in the traditional Palladianan style, while its geometric ceiling was designed and engineered digitally.
- Aperitivos, per favore
On the roastery’s mezzanine, up a sweeping staircase, is the chic Arriviamo Bar. Inspired by the tradition of the Italian aperitivo, early evening social cocktails paired with small bites, the bar features more than 100 cocktails with new creations and traditional favourites like Negroni and Aperol spritz.
- Fire and ice
At the end of the roastery’s main coffee bar on the ground floor is a theatrical mix of food and beverage that staff have dubbed “Fire and Ice”. A line of syphons with glowing flames for brewing coffee sits next to an affogato station creating ice cream with liquid nitrogen, generating clouds of puffy, white vapour with each hand-crafted batch.
- Fresh from the oven
The Princi Bakery in the Milan roastery features a wood-fired oven, made on site.
- Buona terrazza
Outside on the roastery’s distinctly European terrace, customers can enjoy the full range of roastery coffees, cocktails and cuisine.
