In 1983, Howard Schultz – then marketing director of Starbucks – landed in Milan and sat down at Camparino. What he found there was not just an espresso: it was a daily routine where the barista knows your name, the coffee is drunk standing up, but also calmly, and the ritual itself of drinking coffee is equally or more important than selling it. That experience redefined its way of understanding the business -which at that time, and since it was born in 1971 in Seattle, was based only on the wholesale of coffee beans-. And so, Starbucks changed forever.
Schultz volvió a Estados Unidos obsesionado con replicar lo que había vivido en Italia. Así nació el Starbucks tal y como lo conocemos hoy: un lugar donde el café no solo cumple con el objetivo de compra sino que se asocia a un momento de pausa, y, no nos vamos a engañar, también un refugio para muchos profesionales freelance que lo trabajan en remoto.
Pero irónicamente, Italia seguiría siendo el gran ausente en el mapa Starbucks… hasta 2018. Tuvieron que pasar 35 años para que la marca volviera al punto de partida. Y lo hizo con el respeto y la ambición de quien entiende que está pisando terreno sagrado. Nada de tiendas al uso. Starbucks abrió su primer espacio en Italia en forma de Reserve Roastery: un templo dedicado al café.
Located in the Palazzo delle Poste, in the heart of Piazza Cordusio, the Milan Roastery occupies more than 2,000 m² where coffee is roasted, counted and experienced. Among marble countertops and copper details, its six-meter roastery presides over the center of the space. Around it, we find several different areas where we can soak up the coffee culture.
One of its great successes is the Arriviamo Bar, where classic Italian cocktails enter into dialogue with specialty coffee. The Espresso Martini or the Cold Brew Negroni are not only ingenious combinations, but symbols of a well understood cultural fusion. All in a setting more reminiscent of a design hotel lobby than a coffee shop.
Next to it, the Princi bakery – also Milanese – bakes daily focaccia, breads and pastries in a wood-fired oven visible from the dining room. In addition, there is an affogato station prepared on the spot with liquid nitrogen, and methods such as Chemex, Siphon or Clover, which allow visitors to explore new ways of understanding and tasting coffee.
The Roastery in Milan is undoubtedly the most impressive coffee shop of the American multinational in Europe. But in a more poetic way, or grateful perhaps, it is the way to give back to Italy the recognition that its coffee tradition changed Starbucks forever.
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