Bar Luce

Bar Luce is the café of Fondazione Prada, the contemporary art centre created by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli in a former distillery in the south of Milan, and it is one of the most photographed cafés in the city. It was designed in 2015 by the American film director Wes Anderson, who set out to recreate the atmosphere of a typical old Milanese café, a place where he would like to spend his own afternoons away from filming, to sit, talk, read, eat and drink.

The design is the reason most people come. The vaulted ceiling and upper walls reproduce in miniature the glass roof and decorations of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan's great 19th-century arcade. Below, the colours, formica furniture, flooring and wood-panelled walls evoke Italian popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Anderson drew on Italian neorealist cinema, including Vittorio De Sica's Miracle in Milan of 1951 and Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers of 1960, as well as his own short film Castello Cavalcanti from 2013. The pastel palette and careful symmetry will be familiar to anyone who knows his films.

The café works as a classic Italian bar. Order an espresso or a cappuccino at the counter with a pastry in the morning, or sit at one of the tables for a longer break, a light meal or an early-evening drink. Expect prices in line with a smart city-centre café rather than a neighbourhood bar.

Bar Luce suits design and film fans, couples and anyone visiting the exhibitions at Fondazione Prada, which include the gold-leaf-clad Haunted House and the white Torre. It is also a good place to rest after seeing the collections, which can easily fill half a day. Weekends are the busiest time, and queues for tables can form in the afternoon, so a weekday morning visit is the calmest. Photography is popular, but be considerate of other customers.

Bar Luce is in the first building visitors reach at the Fondazione Prada complex on Largo Isarco. The nearest metro stop is Lodi TIBB on line M3, about ten minutes' walk away. Check the Fondazione Prada website for current café opening times, which follow the foundation's schedule and can change for events.