White Rabbit Speakeasy — Restaurant in Milan

I wasn’t going to leave a review because overall I had a good time even though throughout our evening we had some inconveniences, but seeing that my friend was harassed by whatsap by one of the employees, I will tell everyone about our experience. First of all, the fact that there is a secret word to get in is VERY fun until you realize that the person that greets you and asks for it is rude if you don’t guess it on your first try, it took us three tries and the guy was clearly annoyed by the fact that we didn’t know it right away. Once inside, they placed us in a very tiny and uncomfortable table, but it’s part of the mood of the beautiful bar (because it IS in fact beautiful) so no complaints there. The same rude guy that greeted us was our waiter (how lucky!) he was slow, annoyed to serve us and when we would ask for a bit more food (aperitivo) he reminded us that the whole point of an aperitivo was to open our stomachs to then leave for dinner - a suggestion that made us feel not welcomed. This “feeling” was in fact true, as around 10:30 pm, in the middle of our girly gossip catch-up they told us that we had to leave because our tiny table was booked, which is fine, only that we didn’t know and so here is where it all went downhill - they offered us shots for leaving so I guess this is nice? - not sure! We got up from the table to pay and soon after they picked up our drinks which, speaking for myself, I had not finished. I pointed this out and they offered me my money back for the drinks which was not necessary as we were already annoyed by the whole evening and would have left, never to come back, anyway. Why I’m I sharing this? Because today one of the employees VERY disrespectfully wrote to my friend (because she posted an ok review) saying that we caused a scene (which is not true) saying how we were crazy to think that spending 4 hours on a Thursday night in a bar is normal, saying how having us was a cost to them and overall very aggressively writing compulsively. Misunderstanding happen all the time and I was going to leave a good review as the place is really beautiful, the mood is excellent and the drinks are great… but the people that work there? MYGOD! Guess we’ll have to do our girl night someplace...

service, drinks & atmosphere all a 10/10🌟if you manage to figure out the password for this place then you’re in for a v sweet treat.

there was live music on when we arrived and as we sat downstairs i assumed we wouldn’t get to see the band/ singer but to our surprise the singer came downstairs and gave us one hell of a performance! honestly amazing vocals & stage presence- we couldn’t help but be enamoured.

we were guided through the rabbit hole by a woman with really cute gold framed glasses (i didn’t get her name

I came from Seattle and was in Milano for 3 nights. I was staying right next to The White Rabbit. I work in hotels and restaurants and was pretty jazzed to check it out and had been "following" them for a couple months so I would have the password. When my friend and tried to enter, we gave the last password that had been provided and were not allowed in. I showed them their email, in case I had miss-translated the Italian. No go. This was the only bad experience we had in 6 weeks of travel in Italy. Skip the rabbit and have dinner across the street at Stravagario Bistrot. Fantastic service and food.

In response to Owner's Response: My professional back ground is in restaurant and hotel management. It was a Tuesday night at about 8:00 pm, it seemed unlikely that you would have been fully booked. If we had planned to be there on a Saturday I would have called. A free piece of consulting advise, if reservations are required, you need to include that information on your social media. I would also recommend you include it on your Google bio and to make it easier for your international customers add a reservations link so reservations can be made on-line. For the door staff, instead of communicating "no", and walking away, you may want to encourage them to help customers make a reservation for a different evening if you are full, or at least not tell the customer the reason is because they do not have the correct password. The 1-star review is for how it was handled, not because we did not get in, we had a great...