What I liked
- Decent buffet
- Complimentary alcohol
- Panoramic runway views
- Priority Pass membership gets you in
- Lots of natural light
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This is my Montale Lounge Milan review, covering the lounge in Milan Malpensa Airport, Terminal 1, non-Schengen zone.
The lounge can be entered with a Priority Pass membership. If you're not a member of Priority Pass, you can sign up here and get a 30% discount.
I stayed for two hours, and pretty lovely it was too!
The food wasn't half bad. There was complimentary alcohol and, best of all, panoramic runway views!
Passport control at Milan Malpensa comes with its own bit of drama. Right after I cleared it, a couple of stern-looking Italian policemen stopped me to ask if I was carrying a lot of cash to declare. I said no — he clearly didn't believe me, and I ended up showing him my wallet. The Montale Lounge Milan is a two-minute walk further on from there — at the end of a 15-minute walk through security to passport control.
Once inside, the shape of the place is the first thing you notice. The Montale Lounge is a large horseshoe, with floor-to-ceiling windows running the whole outside curve. My wife found us a terrific sofa right by the window. The low leather lounge seats are comfortable enough, though I'll be honest — they've seen better days and aren't brand new.
Food-wise, there's more variety than you'd expect from a self-service buffet: lasagna, a hot chicken dish, asparagus soup and quiche sat alongside croissants, savoury and sweet muffins and freshly cut fruit. Drinks came from the same self-service counter, with a proper Twinings tea selection alongside the usual coffee machine and alcohol.
If you're not already a Priority Pass member and want that sorted before your next trip, my Recommended Resources page has a 30% discount on membership, alongside the rest of the deals I actually use when I travel.
I got into the Montale Lounge Milan with my Priority Pass card.
I have a tie-up with Priority Pass to get you 30% off membership. If you already know this offer, no need to read on!
Priority Pass runs on tiered membership, from an entry-level plan right up to an unlimited option covering well over a thousand lounges worldwide. The more you travel, the more the higher tiers pay for themselves.
For me, lounge access is a genuine money-saver. A coffee and something to eat in the terminal before a flight adds up fast – think $30. Add a drink or two on top, and you’re getting to $60. A lounge visit covers all of that in one go, without watching the bill climb at every counter.
Standard Plus Membership costs $261 and comes with 10 free lounge visits. So each visit cost $26.10.
Priority Pass isn't perfect. Lounges can fill up, and you might get turned away if there's no room. I'd rather pay $7 to pre-book a timeslot and know my spot is guaranteed.
The Montale Lounge Milan is located in the non-Schengen area of Terminal 1 of Milan Malpensa Airport, one of several Milan airport lounges on that side of security.
The Schengen zone is made up of some member countries in the European Union, including Italy and France — Ireland is a notable EU member that stays outside it. There is no internal border between these countries.
Here's the bit that trips people up: Schengen airports split into two zones. Stay within Schengen and nobody checks your passport. Head to a non-Schengen flight — like mine — and you've got to clear passport control to get through.
Once you go through security, it's about a 15-minute walk to get to passport control. Once through Passport Control, the Montale Lounge is a two-minute walk further on.
Interestingly, right after passport control, there were a couple of stern-looking Italian police officers. One asked me if I was carrying a lot of cash to declare. I said no, and for some reason he really didn't believe me. I had to show him my wallet.
The whole walk from security to the lounge door comes to around 17 minutes all in, once you add the security-to-passport-control leg to the final stretch.
In short: the Montale Lounge Milan sits in the non-Schengen zone of Terminal 1, about a two-minute walk past passport control at Milan Malpensa Airport.
A wander through Milan's historic centre
You don't need to book anything to fall for central Milan. Walk the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, stand under the Duomo and just take it in — it's free, and it's one of those "wow" moments Italy does so well. Give yourself an hour just to wander before you commit to anything with a fixed start time.
Best of Milan Tour With Last Supper & Milan Duomo
Book your ticket here for $135. It's rated 4.6* from 411 reviews. Skip-the-line access to both the Duomo and Da Vinci's Last Supper in one go — the queues for either separately are brutal, so this earns its keep.
Learn to Cook Italian Recipes with an Italian Chef
You can book here for $40. Rated 4.8* from 292 reviews. A proper hands-on cooking class with a local chef — the sort of thing that beats another museum queue if you fancy a change of pace.
Full-Day Milan: Skip-the-Line the Last Supper and Duomo Cathedral
Buy tickets here for $175. Rated 4.8* from 382 reviews. This is the premium pick — a full day covering the Last Supper and Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà. It's a long day, but if you only do one deep-dive tour in Milan, make it this one.
The Montale Lounge Milan is a large horseshoe shape, with the outside of the horseshoe having floor-to-ceiling windows with panoramic runway views.
My wife found a terrific sofa next to the window, and we enjoyed sitting there for a couple of hours.
There was a self-service buffet station where you could get food, drinks, alcohol, and tea/coffee.
The seating was mainly low leather lounge seats, perfectly comfortable, although the seats weren't brand new.
It was decent, not amazing but decent. There were a couple of hot dishes, some salad items, and some cold items like sandwiches.
The following items were available:
It wasn't a massive spread, but the quality was decent, and the food tasted ok.
I had focaccia bread, sandwiches and some salad items. It wasn't a full meal, but it was a filling snack before my flight.
The self-service buffet counter served all the soft drinks, tea and coffee, and alcohol.
Coffee was served from a machine. There was a tea section from Twinings.
In terms of alcohol, there were beers in the fridge, a wine selection and the range of spirits.
There was also the usual array of juices and soft drinks.
I had a coffee from the machine. It was perfectly fine. I had an English breakfast tea, which always hit the spot.
The Montale Lounge Milan is a decent way to spend a couple of hours before a non-Schengen flight out of Malpensa. The horseshoe shape and floor-to-ceiling windows make it a genuinely nice spot to sit — my wife and I found a terrific sofa by the window and settled in. The food wasn't half bad either, with more variety on the self-service buffet than I expected: lasagna, quiche, asparagus soup, croissants, all sitting alongside a proper Twinings tea selection.
That said, it's got a few rough edges. The 17-minute walk from security to the lounge door is a fair trek. Getting stopped by policemen at passport control over cash I wasn't carrying wasn't exactly the relaxing start I was after. The leather lounge seats do the job, but they've clearly had some use.
If you're flying non-Schengen out of Terminal 1 and want somewhere comfortable with runway views and a decent buffet, the Montale Lounge Milan delivers. Just don't plan on spending much more than a couple of hours here — any longer and the well-worn seats and modest food spread start to show.