Marco Russo welcomes me into his home with a plate of fennel, dill, and chilli on the table and absolutely no desire to play the “living legend” card. In a heartbeat, we shift from the “rebel without a cause” image of the 1930s to a man who is sensitive, almost stripped bare, a side you wouldn’t expect from a chap like him.
I was the brains and the wallet, but at a certain point, you look at the figures and you feel no joy. You just feel suffocated,” he tells me, locking eyes. There’s no nostalgia here, only the steely resolve of a man who’s lopped off the dead wood to keep from going down with it.
WALKING AWAY FROM THE CIRCUS.
I realised I was getting on a bit,” he continues between mouthfuls. “In my view, this isn’t a job where you can stay on the front line until you’re sixty. Eventually, you go out of fashion. And frankly, while people care about what’s in their glass, it isn’t their top priority.
Walking away at the peak of your powers is a move few have the bottle to pull off. They call it egocentrism—that desperate need to cling to the spotlight until it becomes pathetic. Marco preferred the dark, or rather, the light of day. “I was fed up to the back teeth with working nights; it was robbing me of a life with my son. Everything has a beginning and an end. I chose to call time to save my sanity.
MILAN: THE VANITY FAIR.
As we talk, a portrait emerges of a Milan that chews you up and spits you out. From behind the bar of Italy’s most exclusive haunt, Marco saw it all: the fake smiles, the hangers-on scrounging for a table, and those ready to stab you in the back for a bit of status.
“The ones who used to pester you just for a free drink and a bit of reflected glory… do I hear from them today? Do I bollocks.“
Today, that aggressive “big man” persona has vanished. “It was a shield, a mask I built as a lad when I moved away from the city. In a world where it’s hard to open up, I’d built a suit of armour. That ‘unmanageable’ reputation? It was just stifling immaturity.
FROM THE GROUND UP.
The bar trade sells experiences. Today, Marco sells metal and logistics through his private hire firm. “A month after the sale, I already had the new company mapped out. I could see the profit in it.”
His metamorphosis is near-total. No booze in his daily life (“I drink very little, I don’t feel the need”), plenty of gym time, and a return to his roots that’s almost brutal: a veg patch. “I want my produce straight from the soil. You are what you eat.”
But don’t go mistaking him for a saint or a hermit. Marco Russo is still Marco Russo. Even if he’s living on health food and home-grown veg, his aesthetic soul hasn’t died. “For the record, I still frequent the Michelin-starred spots and I still drink Champagne,” he says with the smirk of a man who knows he can still call the shots. If he’s going to show off, he’ll do it on his own terms.
THE THREE-WAY GAMBLE.
As we finish eating, the talk turns to the future. Marco isn’t one to sit back and admire his old trophies. He’s got three projects whirring in his head—three different directions taking shape while Milan continues its aimless hustle and bustle outside.
“I’ve got three more projects ready to go,” he concludes with an enigmatic smile. “All of them a far cry from the bar world… though perhaps one of them isn’t.”
He gets up and clears the table. No Deliveroo, no entourage. Just a man who understood that to find himself again, he first had to break out of the gilded cage he’d built for himself.
