On the standing breakfast and the institution of the pasticceria
The Milanese breakfast is not a meal. It is a ritual with a specific sequence: stand at the bar, order the coffee and the cornetto simultaneously, pay before or after depending on the establishment's system, and be finished in ten minutes.
The Milanese breakfast is not a meal. It is a ritual with a specific sequence: stand at the bar, order the coffee and the cornetto simultaneously, pay before or after depending on the establishment's system, and be finished in ten minutes. Sitting down for breakfast in Milan is possible — the cafés have tables — but it is not the Milanese way of doing it, and the tables are for visitors or for people who have time to spend that the Milanese generally do not, or prefer to perform not having.
The pasticceria is the specific institution for this ritual. Not the café — the café is for afternoon and evening — but the pasticceria, which sells pastry and coffee and which closes at lunchtime or early afternoon because its business is mornings. The Pasticceria Marchesi on Via Santa Maria alla Porta, in operation since 1824, is the correct example: a counter-and-display-case establishment where the cornetti are made on the premises, the coffee is pulled correctly, and the clientele includes the neighbourhood residents doing the morning thing and the visitors who have been told to come here.
The pastry counter deserves attention. The marrons glacés in glass cases, the torta di riso, the panettone sliced and sold by weight in November and December, the savoury items that the Milanese buy for lunch at the counter in passing — these are not decorative. The pasticceria is a working operation producing real food. The display is a record of what the kitchen can do.
Walk north after breakfast toward Brera. The Pinacoteca di Brera opens at 8:30am. The Mantegna Lamentation in Room VI is the correct work to see in the morning, before the full light of the day comes through the skylight above. The foreshortening is most apparent when you are not yet fully awake and the eye accepts what the mind has not yet processed.