Valextra Meets Mr. Bar Basso

Maurizio Stocchetto tells Valextra why the legendary bar’s continued success lies in the mix.

When you’re the owner of the bar that introduced Milan to cocktail culture, you would be forgiven for feeling the need to chase reinvention; not so Bar Basso owner Maurizio Stocchetto. Both famed proprietor and welcoming face behind the storied establishment since he took the reins from his father nearly 20 years ago, softly spoken Stocchetto prides himself on keeping the Milanese institution as authentic as it is original, from its seats to its world-famous Negroni Sbagliato. Here, he talks cocktails, bar tales and tells Valextra why, when it comes to Bar Basso, “what you see is what you get”.

 

Valextra: For someone who doesn’t know about Bar Basso, can you tell us a little bit about its history?

 

Maurizio Stocchetto: It was established in 1933 on the other side of town by the former owner Giuseppe Basso before it moved to its current location in 1946 after World War II. My father, originally a Venetian, took the place over in 1967 when he came to Milan from Cortina where he spent 20 years from 1946 to 1967.

 

V: How did your father end up in Milan, then?

 

MS: My father decided to leave because he wanted me and my sister to grow up in a city, but when he arrived in Milan from Cortina, although cocktails were very popular in places like Venice and Rome - where Americans started to go after the war - Milan had a different story. It was an investors’ city and people didn’t have time to invest in cocktails. Also, society was divided – so factory workers weren’t interested in having cocktails because it didn’t fit in their culture. Also, people from Milan would have cocktails in hotel lounges rather than bars. 

 

V: What are your earliest memories of the bar?


MS: I literally grew up in the bar! I arrived in Milano when I was seven and when I was in elementary school I would go to the bar and wait for my father to finish his shift. The regulars quickly adopted me and I was allowed to listen to their conversations; it was very interesting as a child to see what the adults were doing to have fun!

“We want it to be an elegant watering hole but still a bar so that it relates to bar culture. What you see is what you get, basically.”

V: How would you describe the ambience in the bar, now?

 

MS: It was the first bar which started to create cocktails in Milano and it still has a taste of another era. It’s really original in that it’s a real place - not too sophisticated! We basically want it to be an elegant watering hole but still a bar so that it relates to bar culture. What you see is what you get, basically.

 

V: Do you think having that balance is what makes a great cocktail bar?

 

MS: I think that [a great bar] needs a very mixed crowd and Bar Basso has always been like that. In the late Sixties, the bar was full of politicians – we had people from the left wing, from the right wing – policemen, actors, singers, journalists, entrepreneurs, scumbags – it was fun! It was a soup! That was very interesting because that’s what gave us character. We have been through periods and times when we were very fashionable and people said, “Bar Basso is the place to be!” Then we had other times when people found us boring because other places were opening up. Oddly, again, we are back in fashion!

 

V: Do you think that’s because Bar Basso became synonymous with the design crowd?

 

MS: For me, the more [diverse] the more interesting. We love to have [people from the worlds of] art, fashion and design and these three industries are very important in the city, but we also have to be careful not to overlook other people. The more the merrier!

“Well, the Negroni was originally invented in Florence in the Thirties, but my father made it with a twist in the early Seventies [using prosecco instead of gin]. It became very popular and it helped put us on the map in dire times.”

V: Let’s talk about one of Bar Basso’s most famous inventions, the Negroni Sbagliato. How did your father conceive that?

 

MS: Well, the Negroni was originally invented in Florence in the Thirties, but my father made it with a twist in the early Seventies [using prosecco instead of gin]. It became very popular and it helped put us on the map in dire times.

 

 

V: The bar’s glasses that cocktails are served out of are almost as renowned as the menu – can you tell us about them?

 

MS: Cocktail glasses were pretty hard to find in Milan because they weren’t very common. My father, as a Venetian, knew people who had a glass company in Venice, so he started to develop a cocktail glass collection. He designed small glasses for stiff drinks and large glasses for long drinks and when they arrived at the bar they were tested straight away. The waiters were bringing the drinks to the tables and relayed back that the bases were a little too small so not as stable. So we made a stronger base or a shorter stem or a longer stem or a bigger cup and so on. There was a lot of [development] with the glasses until we found a compromise between aesthetic and function. 

 

V: That’s incredible and testament to true ergonomic design.

 

MS: It’s an amazing story and it became especially interesting around the Eighties, when we started to become a home away from home to a lot of industrial designers in Milan. They would come into the bar to ask us the specifics of how to make the glasses that we use! 

 

V: It’s interesting, because around the same time your father pioneered cocktail culture and glassware, Valextra’s founder, Giovanni Fontana, engineered the Tric Trac – a new bag for a new era. How do you think the arrival of these things coincided to capture the spirit of Milan at the time?

 

MS: For us it’s very hard to define, but for my father, Valextra was one of his favourite shops from the very beginning! I remember the most amazing shop with the round windows on Via San Babila before it moved to Via Manzoni. We still have suitcases from the Seventies – the Forma Zero. They were very heavy, but still in good shape, actually! We’ve been buying wallets from the very early days in Milano – we have a briefcase and lots of key holders, too.

 

MS: So, what is Bar Basso like during Christmas, Maurizio?

 

It’s very lively before Christmas because people meet and have aperitif to exchange gifts or gatherings to have a toast before the festivities. It’s a traditional spot especially for people who may not go out so much anymore, but for Christmas, they come for a drink. This is when it really gets interesting!