Marchesi 1824 is one of Milan’s oldest and most renowned pastry shops. It was founded in 1824 by the Marchesi family and built its reputation on artisanal products and handcrafted panettone, the city’s cake. In the early twentieth century the owner, Angelo Marchesi, began serving coffee, drinks and cocktails at aperitivo time, and the pasticceria became a café. The original shop keeps its coffered ceilings and early twentieth-century furnishings and is one of the most iconic places in Milan. Two more Milan cafés followed, one of them inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, making five stores in all: three in Milan, one in Mayfair and a second elsewhere in London. Marchesi 1824 is part of the Prada Group.

For its bicentenary in 2024 Marchesi built a programme around the four ingredients that shaped its history: chocolate, coffee, vanilla and marron glacé. Its online shop sells the Milan Heritage Blend, offered together with 1895 Coffee Designers by Lavazza: an Arabica and Robusta blend from Brazil, Colombia and India, classified as specialty, with intense chocolate aromas and notes of cinnamon and orange peel. A coffee set with a grinder sits alongside it.

Marchesi does not roast; its retail blend comes from 1895 Coffee Designers by Lavazza.

Coffee on the shelf