The pastry chef who convinced Milanese people to enter a hotel just for breakfast

By trade, he could be called a restorer of moments. Cesare Murzilli, soon to turn forty, born in Cesa di Avezzano but raised between the Castelli Romani and the capital, is one of the many Romans conquering Milan by teaching it to be less rigid, to live with a smile, and to blow away that fog (the scighera, as they call it here) that climate change has now made largely metaphorical. Executive Pastry Chef at 10_11 at the Portrait in Via Sant’Andrea, the former seminary just a stone’s throw from Monte Napoleone, closed off to Milanese eyes for centuries and reopened by the Ferragamo family with the Portrait, he has the merit of convincing Milanese to finally step into this large, austere and beautiful cloister simply to eat his apple pie.

A new moment

Cesare Murzilli

Breakfast at 10_11 is always sold out and is one of the most interesting things to have happened recently on the Milanese gastronomic scene. And it is also a story that tells us something about the city today. When the Portrait hotel opened in January 2023, it seemed destined, like all top-level hotels, to focus on a fine dining project, and the talented chef Alberto Quadrio was chosen for the role. At first, he shocked the city with his deluxe version of plain pasta, but soon it became clear that if this place could bring something new to the city, it was informal cuisine in an elegant setting and the rediscovery of overlooked moments of the gastronomic day. First and foremost, breakfast. And, for a few weeks now, Sunday brunch as well.
“We wanted to show that quality can also be done during the day,” Murzilli tells us. So the fine dining project was shelved (for now), Quadrio moved to Franciacorta, Luigi Cinotti arrived in the kitchen, and the true protagonist of 10_11 became Murzilli himself, with his pastry creations.

The breakfast counter

A lost habit

Breakfast at 10_11, as we said. Of course, frequented by the hotel’s guests, but also by many outsiders. A ritual that has changed Milan a little, even if Murzilli downplays it.
“Changed Milan? Let’s just say that the breakfast habit has always been there, maybe people didn’t think of having it in a hotel, we reawakened a moment that had come to a standstill. We were skilful and lucky in recreating a meal that seemed lost, and even though Milan has other wow breakfasts, last year we won an award as the best hotel breakfast in Italy.”

Garden of the 10_11

Simplicity

But how do you persuade an ordinary citizen to step across the threshold of a big hotel, which can be a little intimidating, just to eat a pastry?
“Bringing outside customers into a hotel – explains Murzilli – is always complicated, but we exploded instead.”
How? “We focus on simplicity, on making people feel good, we don’t put on airs and there’s no selection at the entrance. We are a fluid place.”

Sure, but fluidity isn’t edible.
“We make everything ourselves, there’s a lot of craftsmanship. We prepare zabaglione in front of the customer every morning, at least sixty types of pastries and desserts, including gluten-free versions, we make traditional Italian cakes, we get our milk from a lady who owns cows, she calls them ‘the young ladies’. Sometimes she texts me: no milk today, the young ladies are stressed. But it’s golden milk, like in the past. We make coffee with a moka pot. Then we have a section dedicated to whatever comes to mind, we try things out, if they work they stay on the menu. The latest idea was filling croissants as if they were single-portion cakes, we have fun and people notice and appreciate it. Our motto is: shall we try? And when we succeed, we’re always a bit taken aback.”

The high price? Not a problem

Of course, breakfast is not cheap: the most lavish version (which includes a rich buffet, a hot dish and cold and hot drinks) costs €55, a price that may seem high but which pays for itself with the recovery of a different moment in the day, in an atmosphere that inspires happiness, also thanks to the winter garden.
“Many regulars come here, lawyers from nearby firms, people happy to be here. And if you have a breakfast like this, you might even skip lunch.”

The initial idea, in fact, was to revive the Sunday breakfast, when one has more time and there’s that festive scent in the air. Apparently contradictory to do it in Italy’s most stressed city.
“Milan is a city that runs, that always does things. But it’s also a city that pays attention. What Milan has given me in three years would have taken me ten years to get in Rome, it’s an accelerator.”

Pampered staff

For any ambitious project you need trained and smiling staff, which everywhere seems hard to find – but not here.
“Keeping good staff in the dining room and kitchen is very difficult, but in pastry we experience the opposite: we receive lots of applications to work with us, we even have a waiting list. We started out with four and now we are twelve.”
And why is that?
“The company treats us well, we work five days a week for eight hours, mostly during the day, we try to accommodate the staff by maybe linking Saturday and Sunday with Monday and Tuesday to give them four consecutive days off. And there’s a great atmosphere, we do research and innovation. But when the numbers are positive, you can afford certain things.”

The Sunday brunch

And now, for a few weeks, there’s the Sunday brunch: from 12 noon onwards, at €95. A supercharged breakfast featuring the breakfast buffet, with dozens of pastries and baked goods both sweet and savoury, hot dishes like eggs, pancakes and a good grilled chicken with peppers. Plus trolleys circulating with various types of Bloody Mary, salmon sliced in front of the customer, and a cheesecake to be topped as one wishes. And an unbeatable atmosphere like a chic village fair.
“Hard work always pays off: kitchen, dining room, pastry and marketing all have to work as a team. And then there are collaborations – Antonio Bachour came, my mentor Emanuele Borbone, Damiano Carrara – we do things together, we have fun, and they don’t even want to be paid.”

Sunday brunch

The future

Murzilli’s next project is to focus properly on specialty coffee and to create another moment: afternoon Tea Time “done properly, with a sweet tier and a savoury tier, we’ll call it merenda. We already tried it last Christmas, it went very well. Honest price and wow product.”
In the end, catering is a simple thing.