GASTRONOMIA BAR CAFFÈ, VIA DI LUDOVICO DI MONREALE 1, 00152 ROMA

Rating: Poor, lower-end Roman coffee

This place was great. The Bar Gastronomia Caffè (talk about an ‘ultra generic’ name!) in Monteverde feels like you’re stepping directly into somebody’s kitchen. Extremely informal, relaxed, and you’re greeted by a ‘Ciao caro’ (Hello dear). When I walked in there was a discussion of the barista’s wife, among other things. The interesting thing of this cafe is that it is on Piazza Ottavilla, by the Pamphilj park, and there are four other bars on this same piazza.​

Asking for a caffè gets you the following:​

​Presentation: No water was offered, but I’m sure he would have obliged. A customer nearby asked for some milk and he poured it directly from the bottle. So really an informal place. This is a good thing.

Temperature of Cup: The cup was extremely hot. Not Palombini Cafe hot, but too hot to put to the lips.

Quantity: This was great, it was a very short espresso, really short in this cup, and probably a ristretto by most US standards.

Temperature: Even after letting the cup cool down, the espresso was still boiling. Ugh…

Volume/Consistency: Once I put it to the test, the espresso was watery. Some consistency could have saved it.

Crema: The crema was very thin, very dark, and had some faint signs of complex life (see the picture, it was pretty!), but dissipated super fast. All because of the temperature of the coffee.​

Odor: Surprisingly it had some odor, it wasn’t charred bean, but darkly roasted coffee. It was great to get this sense back into a cup!

Taste: Given all of the above, I was expecting a nitrogen bomb in a cup. But it was just bordering on rancid, and was a bit too bitter. The shortness of the shot is what saved it from being simply an awful coffee.​

​Overall: I would say that this was not the best coffee. And the rating I’m giving it is because it’s surrounded by really great coffee options. On the Ottavilla piazza there’s plenty of options to have very good espresso… but I guess what this place has, that others don’t, is the informal setting. It’s a super small space, taken out of the early 80s, and a very nice barista pulling the shots.

The setup: They had a super great looking Gaggia machine, along with a grinder that paled in comparison to the sleekness of the machine. The coffee served was a new one for me, it was Biondi Caffè a North Eastern Roman roaster, close to Tivoli. I would be interested in tasting this from another place, maybe it’s got tons of potential like the Gran Caffè Santos which can be quite decent.​

Bar Gastronomia Caffè

Via di Ludovico di Monreale, 1

00152 Roma