A local’s guide to aperitivo in the Navigli

There is a particular hour in Milan, just as the light turns gold and the working day loosens its tie, when the whole city seems to exhale and drift towards a glass of something cold. For the years I lived there, this was my favourite hour, and the Navigli, Milan’s old canal quarter, is where I loved to spend it.

Aperitivo is not happy hour, and it is not dinner. It is a ritual: a drink before the evening meal, taken slowly, with a little something to eat and, above all, with people. The Milanese have turned it into an art form. Get it right and you will understand the city better than any museum could teach you.

If you have never been, the Navigli are two canals, the Naviglio Grande and the Naviglio Pavese, that meet at the Darsena, the old dock. Once these waters carried the marble for the Duomo; now they carry the reflection of a hundred little bars at dusk. Walk down the Ripa di Porta Ticinese with the water beside you and you will pass osteria after bar after wine shop, tables spilling onto the towpath.

A word on what to order. The easy choice is a Spritz, bittersweet and the colour of a sunset, but a true Milanese aperitivo leans on Campari: an Americano, a Negroni, or a Negroni Sbagliato, the "mistake" made with sparkling wine instead of gin, which is somehow better than the original. If you would rather not drink, ask for a crodino or an analcolico and nobody will blink. The point is the ritual, not the alcohol.

With your drink comes the food, and this is where visitors often go wrong. Many places now lay on a generous spread, and it is tempting to treat it as supper. Resist, a little. Graze, do not gorge. The spread is an invitation to stay, not a free dinner, and the locals know it.

My advice, learned the slow way: skip the biggest, brightest bar on the corner of the Darsena, however lovely it looks, and wander one street back. Find the Vicolo dei Lavandai, the tiny old washerwomen’s alley off the Naviglio Grande, and the quieter stretches beyond it. Go on a weekday if you can, arrive around half past six, order one good drink, and make it last. Watch the light go down over the water. That is the whole secret.

And if you have children with you, do not assume aperitivo is off limits. Early evening, before the crowds thicken, the canalside is all pushchairs and dogs and grandparents; a plate of focaccia and a fresh orange juice by the water is a perfectly Milanese way to end a family day.

When I miss Milan, this is the hour I miss. You cannot bottle it, but you can borrow it: a good drink, something small to eat, the people you like, and no hurry at all. That, really, is the whole of la bella vita.