Big fan of Wes Anderson films and ultra-strong espressos? Get yourself to Milan pronto.
Anderson has just designed a new café, Bar Luce, and naturally the bijou factor is off the charts. Sat in Prada’s art complex in the city, all of the filmmaker’s hallmarks are present: vintage furniture, old-school jukebox, two pinball machines (one with a Steve Zissou theme) and the sort of wallpaper that belongs on a luxury suitcase. Ever the Europhile, he’s even added architectural nods to the city itself.
“The seats, formica furniture, floor, veneered wood wall panels and the range of colors employed are reminiscent of Italian popular culture and aesthetics from the 1950s and 1960s, echoing artistic decisions Anderson made years earlier for his short film Castello Cavalcanti,” says the official website of the venture. Castello Cavalcanti, incidentally, is the theme of the other pinball machine. We'd make the trip for that alone.
Now open to the public from 9am to 10pm, it should do for coffee types what David Lynch’s Parisian member’s club Silencio has done for clubbers, offering an experiential slice of American cinema in a practical day-to-day setting.
Now we just need Michael Bay to open a car dealership in Swindon and we’re done.