Mr & Mrs Smith

Straf Hotel & Bar

Milan, Italy

Its unassuming facade masks a modern-elegant interior: raw-concrete walls and chocolate-brown chaise-longues in the lobby. It struck us as a destination for fans of the out-of-the-ordinary, the style-conscious and the arty. Straf Hotel & Bar is a celebration of bona fide cutting-edge fashionista minimalism, with distressed fabric under glass along its stylish corridors, and scuffed-satiny walls.

Need to know

• Rooms 64, including three suites
• Rates Double rooms from $293.11 (€227), excluding tax at 10 per cent.
  The price shown represents the lowest nightly rate for a double room available at this hotel over the next 21 days. Any price conversions from the hotel's local currency (€227) have been conducted using today's exchange rates from xe.com.
• More details Rates usually include Continental breakfast.
• Facilities Fitness room, valet parking, free WiFi throughout. In-rooms: flatscreen TV, minibar.
• Check-out 12 noon, but flexible, subject to availability and a charge (half the daily room rate between 2pm and 5pm; a full day’s rate after 5pm). Earliest check-in, 2pm.
• Children Welcome: extra beds are free for under-12s; €88 a night for teens.
• Also Little dogs (the fashionable kind) are invited, too.

Food and drink at Straf Hotel & Bar

• Hotel restaurant

  Breakfast and lunch are served in a neat little room, with glossy white table tops, square leather seats and textured colour-block canvases. The novel Euro-Asian fusion à la carte lunch menu has dishes such as Thai pasta or salmon with black rice. Dinner isn’t on offer, but a complimentary Milanese finger-food buffet is laid out at 6.30pm.

• Dress code As directional as the decor: Jil Sander for the ladies, Alexander Wang for the gents.
• Top table Sit in the corner booth by the glass wall for the most privacy. For easy access to the buffet at breakfast, sit at the other end, closest to the spread.
• Last orders For dinner, 10.30pm. The bar closes at midnight but will stay open later for you if you ask.
• Room service It’s drinks-only by day: try one of the exotic teas (sweet pan yong golden needle, or kimono: green tea with rose petals and cherry) from 7am. In the evening, a selection of Italian staples can be ordered until 10.30pm.
• Hotel bar

  Dark, compact and edgy Straf Bar is a magnet for the fashion set, drawn here by the retro good looks (aged leather sofa, acid-green lightshade mushrooming from the ceiling), potent cocktails and generous nibbles. Drinking sessions officially end at midnight, but it’s often open later.

   

Straf Hotel & Bar 3 Via San Raffaele, Milan, Milan 20121