Who could resist these delicacies? Pastries on display at the first Sant Ambroeus, which opened in Milan in 1936.

The Sant Ambroeus Diaries

Ninety years since opening as a small Milanese café, the Italian institution has changed hands, grown to 30 locations, and watched its hometown rise from former Austrian rump state to international cultural capital

By Mario Calvo-Platero

Entering Sant Ambroeus on New York’s Madison Avenue a few weeks ago, I noticed a beautiful display of luscious chocolates and pink cakes, each adorned with the number 90. “Not for sale,” I was told. Rather, the delicacies were made for the restaurant’s 90th anniversary, a milestone that fed my curiosity: how did Sant Ambroeus make it through nine decades, including a World War, a Cold War, the Red Brigades and corruption scandals in Italy, the coronavirus epidemic, and several changes in ownership, all while keeping its soul, quality, tradition, and spirit intact on both sides of the Atlantic?

So many other beloved New York culinary institutions—Sirio Maccioni’s Le Cirque, Charles and Gisele Masson’s La Grenouille, Tony May’s San Domenico—did not survive 40 years. How has Sant Ambroeus managed not just to endure but to prosper? The short answer is through strong family values and evolution. Since its inception in Milan, in 1936, when Teresa “Mimma” Cattaneo opened it with her husband, Italo, and her son Giovanni, Sant Ambroeus has always been managed by a family willing to “change so that everything can stay the same,” as Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote in his novel The Leopard.