Acanto, from breakfast through dinner.

Principe di Savoia is the upper-crust and royal hotel in Milan, Italy – you just know that whoever has the tenth floor Presidential Suite, with its own elevator, three bedrooms, dining for 14 and a private pool, has brought a tiara or an orb of office. The other 300 rooms are filled with arbiters of style and good taste (not so much fashionistas but those who appreciate antiques, Aqua di Parma, Broggi cutlery and a Thierry Despont fantasy lobby. When you ask for Prosecco, it is perfectly chilled Cal d’Bosco in your choice of flute or rounded glass.

A banana cake awaiting at bedtime.

This is all a far cry from when the hotel opened in 1927 to service the main rail station. Now it is Italian style with a sense of humor. Look at the kids’ section in private dining and you see what I mean. On arrival, I exclaimed at the perfect bananas in a fruit bowl big enough to feed the Yankees. Then later after dinner, someone had made me a banana cake! There was also a sense of humor in my suite 636/637. Designer Celeste dell’Anna has paired highly-veneered furnishings with a standing leather cabinet that opens like a traveling trunk to reveal the minibar (full-size spirits, of course) and the wall art is, well, unexpected.

My dinner at Acanto was unexpected too. First, Executive Chef Fabrizio Cadei, came out and talked and talked, mostly with the hotel’s stylish MD Ezio Indiani, but also to explain his dishes, which include a pea and squid ink risotto. Acanto could only be in Italy: it gleams by night, and its breakfast buffet lights up not only with a whole table of different yogurt brands but also with a selection of the sweet tarts that Milanaise seem to favor with wakeup coffee.

Chef Fabrizio Cadei and his boss, MD Ezio Indiani.