Arturo and Maria Maggi in front of their Milan restaurant.

Hundreds of paintings of roses, La Latteria’s symbol, adorn the walls of the restaurant.

Arturo and Maria, opposite the entrance to the kitchen. The restaurant looks the same as it always has, minus the white tablecloths.

*Top,* the dining room on an evening before the restaurant closed; *above,* the ceramic-tiled bar.

A grandfather clock presides over the dining area.

Arturo in the kitchen he cooked in for 58 years.

A portrait of Maria and Arturo in Renaissance garb, which also graced the covers of the restaurant’s menus.

*Top,* Maria in the bar area; *above,* a stencil of Arturo and Maria in the dining room.

A photograph of the couple from an early newspaper article on La Latteria.

Arturo holding the plate Keith Haring gave to the Maggis when he visited the restaurant, in 1988.

Maria’s teacup collection, in the apartment she and Arturo share, above the restaurant.

A fondant tribute to Arturo, Maria, and their son Marco, given to them by a client after they announced they’d be closing up shop.

*Top,* a plaque on the restaurant doorway that translates to: “In 1998, the tradition of cooking in silver pots started here”; *above,* a portrait of the couple in their living room.

The restaurant’s signature rose, spray-painted by a client onto La Latteria’s shutter last year.

Long Live La Latteria

Over six decades, the couple behind this quaint Milanese spot served spaghetti al limone to Kennedys, Agnellis, artists, and locals alike

By Elena Clavarino

Photographs by DANIEL PAIK

As artists and gallerists prepare their booths at warehouses across Milan for the Salone del Mobile design fair next week, one storefront on Via San Marco, in the Brera neighborhood, remains conspicuously empty. Locals know it as the former site of La Latteria di San Marco, Arturo and Maria Maggi’s restaurant, which shut down permanently in December.

Ever since it opened, in 1965, La Latteria was widely considered the city’s best restaurant. Patrons dined on simple foods—local vegetables, grilled Piedmontese beef, and their signature dish, spaghetti al limone (pasta with lemon zest). Seating consisted of eight small two-tops situated under an emergency-room glare. The restaurant was closed on weekends, and if you tried to call, more often than not you were greeted by an unintelligible Italian grumble followed by the click of the receiver.