history

Milano is located at 25th and Grand on the first level of Crown Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The restaurant is glass enclosed and has a view of Crown Center's fabulous fountains with 49 jets that plume water 25 feet into the air. It is part of the Crown Center Restaurants by Hyatt, which also includes the prestigious Peppercorn Duck Club and the whimsical Crayola Café.

Milano opened in 1989, is known for its authentic Italian cuisine, homemade pastas, extensive wine-list and exceptional service. The Executive Chef Giovanni D'Angelo has revamped the entire menu to reflect the Italian flavors from his own experience. Milano has a relaxed setting with the average entrée price ranging between $7 to $11 for lunch and $7.50 to $20 for dinner.

The restaurant seats 250 guests. Reservations are appreciated, dress is up-scale and in-door parking is available. Complimentary validation of parking tickets is available.

Milano's private dining room which opened in December of 2002 was the result of the collaborative efforts of the Crown Center Redevelopment design staff along with President Bill Lucas and Culinary Concept's Managing Director, Solomon Melesse.

The vision of Lucas and Melesse was to create a dining space which features privacy and the appropriate atmosphere for groups to conduct lunch and dinner meetings while not intruding upon the original design elements of the restaurant created by original architects Aumiller Youngquist of Chicago in 1989.

The name Aumiller Youngquist Architects is well known in the hospitality industry as they have led the design of many national and international restaurants. Numerous awards testify to their achievements including the "Platinum Circle Award for Design Excellence" from Hospitality Design Magazine and the "Best of Competition" Award from Restaurant/Hotel Design International.
Keith Youngquist, (founder of the company), known for his combining the design elements of tile, stone, glass mosaics and wood used these mediums to give Milano a unique and whimsical design.

Interestingly, the artist chosen to paint the mural featured in the Café portion of the restaurant never set foot in Milano. Working solely from Youngquist's vision, Greg Gove, a native to Chicago, painted the two murals in oil on canvas and they were sent to Kansas City. The renovation crew then adhered the murals as if they were wallpaper.

La Stanza DI Verta (The Glass Room) features a nod to the Gove's original mural in the form of adhesives (which resemble glass etchings) on the walls of the private room. This design element has allowed semi-privacy when total privacy is not needed. Local visual designers, Gina Estes and Don Rogers created the design and a local company "Adversign" painstakingly affixed the artwork.

Solomon Melesse commented "As we envisioned, designed and built La Stanza DI Vetra, all of the elements seemed to fall into place. The hardest part of the process was coming up with a name. He smiles, "We deferred to John Korycki. He speaks fluent Italian."