Milan gets reduced to fashion week and the Duomo, but the city's hotel concierges and general managers point to a very different itinerary — one built around tucked-away churches, after-hours art, and streets most visitors walk straight past.

Start with the obvious-but-essential: Leonardo's Last Supper, painted on the refectory wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie in the 15th century. Stephanie Greger, general manager of the Mandarin Oriental, suggests booking a private after-hours tour with an art expert to dodge the crowds. Olmo Feudatari, concierge at the Four Seasons, notes the painting still hangs in the room Leonardo created it for over 500 years ago — which is part of what makes seeing it feel so intimate.

For more Renaissance, the concierge points to San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore on Corso Magenta, a 16th-century church so richly frescoed it's nicknamed the Sistine Chapel of Milan. Greger adds the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, a former private collector's residence where Botticelli and Piero della Francesca works hang in a domestic setting rather than a vast gallery. The 17th-century Biblioteca Ambrosiana is another sleeper hit: its Pinacoteca holds Caravaggio, Raphael and Leonardo, plus the Codex Atlanticus — Leonardo's sprawling notebooks on engineering, anatomy and architecture.

If you want contemporary instead, hunt down Arnaldo Pomodoro's Labyrinth under a former industrial building on Via Solari, an immersive sculpture maze inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh. Even locals skip it, which is precisely the appeal. Valeriano Antonioli, CEO of Portrait Milano, is an advocate for the Cimitero Monumentale — a 19th-century cemetery that doubles as an open-air museum of mausoleums and sculptures tracing Italian design from historicism to early modernism.

Milan's residential quarters reward wanderers too. Via Lincoln, near Piazza Cinque Giornate, began life in the late 19th century as a garden village for railway workers; today around 40 villas in pink, turquoise, yellow and blue line the street — Feudatari compares it to Notting Hill. Brera remains the classic quarter for boutiques, galleries and cafés: try Via Ciovasso and Via Solferino for vintage hunting, or duck into historic shops like stationer Pettinaroli and Antica Barbieria Colla, a barber trading since the early 20th century. With a single afternoon, Greger suggests Brera, then Via Montenapoleone down to the Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and La Scala.

Design lovers get their own circuit year-round, not just during Salone del Mobile. Nilufar on Via della Spiga mixes historic furniture with commissions from emerging designers, with its larger Nilufar Depot space in a former industrial building for serious collectors. Rossana Orlandi's Via Matteo Bandello space champions new talent, while Robertaebasta in Brera specialises in Art Deco and 20th-century Italian collectible design.

The through-line from all these recommendations: Milan rewards travellers who give it a second day. The headline sights are worth the queue, but the city's real character lives in its quieter churches, pastel backstreets and design galleries — most of them within a short walk of the centre.

Original reporting by Elite Traveler.