For its Italian debut, high-end global restaurant chain Beefbar couldn’t have chosen a more prestigious location than Milan’s Piazza del Quadrilatero. Anchored by the Ferragamo family-owned, five-star hotel Portrait Milano, the newly opened hospitality complex features an eclectic collection of boutiques, restaurants and bars housed in the historic Archbishop Seminary in the heart of the city’s fashion district. Beefbar is renowned as much for offering the finest meat cuts from all over the globe as for its subversion of the rigid, traditional codes of steakhouses, so what better spot to host its Milanese outpost than the Seminary’s former chapel. Designed by Monte Carlo-based architects Humbert & Poyet, who have been working with the brand for over 15 years, the restaurant’s interiors are the epitome of understated luxury and “warm glamour” inspired by the mid-century Milanese cafés of the 1940s and 1960s.

Following a seven-year restoration project, the revamped 16th-century Lombard Baroque edifice, one of the oldest seminaries in Europe, evocatively bridges past and present, courtesy of architect Michele De Lucchi and his studio AMDL CIRCLE who introduced a decidedly contemporary look and feel without undermining the building’s architectural heritage. A similar balancing act underpins Humbert & Poyet’s design of Beefbar Milano which complements the baroque architecture of the space with the stylish refinement of mid-century Italian design.