The Milan Openings to Watch in 2026
Milan rewards patience. The city rarely announces itself; it lets a room fill slowly, lets a chef settle, lets the right people find a table before anyone calls it a moment. This year there is more to wait for than usual — two major hotels are still finishing, a Tokyo veteran has come home, and a thirty-year-old has quietly become one of the city's brightest cooks.
Some of it has already arrived; some of it is still behind scaffolding. What follows tracks both through 2026 — what's landed, and what is still to come.
The hotels still to arrive
Two openings have the city's attention, and neither is rushing.
A rooftop bar over Brera's cobbled streets, a hidden courtyard, arabescato marble: Six Senses Milan is slated to open in late 2026 at Via Brera 19, in the heart of the design quarter. It's the brand's first Milan address — around 69 rooms behind interiors by Tara Bernerd & Partners, with a spa downstairs. For a label built on restraint, Brera is an honest fit.
Two old buildings, a step from Via Montenapoleone, are being stitched into one: Rosewood Milan is slated for 2026 in the Quadrilatero della Moda. It will occupy the historic Palazzo Branca and the former Banca Commerciale building, with roughly 70 rooms, interiors by the Parisian Studio KO, an Asaya wellness floor and a courtyard restaurant. Reports on the exact timing vary — some point toward 2027 — so treat it as a property to watch rather than a date to book around.
The dining rooms that have landed
Seafood, a terrace over the skyline, and the group's first proper cocktail room: the Langosteria Group now crowns the top floors of Palazzo Fendi — the year's most-discussed address — with Langosteria Montenapoleone and Ally's Bar. It's a confident, polished arrival from a name Milan already trusts with seafood.
A floor below, a chef has come home after more than fifteen years away. PEPE, which opened on 11 February 2026, is the new project of Luca Fantin, back in Italy after that long a run at the Bvlgari hotel in Tokyo. It's a deliberate turn for the Langosteria group — counter-style, contemporary Italian, built around sharing rather than spectacle. Fantin's return alone makes it one of the year's genuine events.
A live pianist plays in a warm, 1970s-inflected room, and the recognition has caught up with the work. Procaccini earned one Michelin star in the 2026 Italy guide, a fast ascent for chef Emin Haziri — born in Kosovo in 1995, raised in Italy — whose contemporary cooking and raw seafood arrive there. It reads less like a debut than like a place that always knew where it was going.
Forty years of one family cooking Korean food in the city sit behind the counter at Kiwon, the smaller, more personal room people keep mentioning: a small-plates kitchen and wine bar with counter seating, run by chef Ha Neul Ko. It's the kind of opening Milan does quietly and does well.
A familiar room, refreshed
A dining room goes dark for the summer rather than opening one. Il Ristorante – Niko Romito, the contemporary-Italian room at the Bvlgari Hotel Milano, closes for enhancements from late June and is expected to reopen on 1 September 2026. A reset rather than a debut — but for a room of this standing, the return is worth marking on its own.
How to keep up with the rest
The trouble with a list like this is that it ages the moment it's published. A hotel slips a season; a tasting menu changes; the room everyone meant to try becomes the room everyone has already been to.
That's the point of Better Taste. The Milan catalogue is curated and kept current, so you carry the whole edit in your pocket rather than a post that goes stale — filter it by what you're in the mood for, and save the rooms you want to reach before they fill.
Start with the openings above, then browse the rest of the city.