10KEYS Milano

10KEYS Milano occupies a building on Via Andrea Maffei, in the quarter between Porta Romana and Piazza Cinque Giornate, walking distance from the Duomo but far enough off the main roads not to hear the traffic. Ten keys only, as the name says: veined marble, artworks on the walls and a service closer to that of a private house than of a hotel.

Here the wellness is inside the room

This is worth explaining properly, because the booking listings tell it badly. 10KEYS has no shared wellness area: there is no spa floor with pools, a Kneipp circuit or a shared relaxation area. The wellness has been moved inside the rooms. Every suite has a steam room built into the shower, so the steam goes on when you want it and stays for whoever booked that room alone. The Deluxe Suite, the largest at twenty-six square metres, adds a private sauna inside the suite: you go from the bed to the cabin in a bathrobe, with no timetable and sharing it with nobody. The Superior and Executive rooms keep to the steam shower.

Anyone looking for movement and treatments finds them outside the door but under the same roof: guests have access to MUSE, the club's equipped gym, with private pilates, yoga, indoor cycling and functional training lessons by appointment, and can book massages and osteopathy sessions. The Bistruccio restaurant also serves in the room.

There are no pools. It is an address for adults who come to Milan for work or for a weekend in the city and want absolute quiet, a space of their own and the freedom to take a sauna at eleven at night. Anyone looking instead for a proper spa, with pools and shared circuits, will not find it here.