MASSIMO CAFÈ, CIRCONVALLAZIONE GIANICOLENSE 416, 00151 ROMA

Rating: Poor, very low quality coffee served

Again, we’re confronted with a generic, ultra-generic, name and coffee that lacks any type of positive qualities. The cafe ‘Bar Tabacchi’ (or simply the bar-tobacco), oops sorry, it’s Massimo Cafè (yeah, just one ‘f’) according to the big sticker on the winder, was a place I passed by many times and dreaded the idea to walk into. Finally, I took the plunge.

Asking for a coffee gives you a guilty feeling. The owner/barista is peacefully talking (or arguing) with his friend, and it feels like you’re are indeed interrupting something more important. Whatever, I was there to try their coffee, so this is what I get.​

​Presentation: OK, not a bad start. This place is bleak, and the people there are roughing it in life. Its a dump actually, but the coffee looked to be off to a good start. No water offered, the look I got from the barista said ‘ask and I’ll throw it in your face’…

Temperature of Cup: Shwartzkopf!!! Super hot cup. Had to wait, and that gave me a chance to stare back at the 3 souls that were there inspecting me.

Quantity: Good short short in a rather large espresso cup.

Temperature: By the time I took a sip, it was tepid, so who knows.

Volume/Consistency: Watery, runny, dirty water feeling.

Crema: Super thin, and dark. That’s a mixed response, no?

Odor: No odor whatsoever. I tend to forget nowadays that coffee is meant to be fragrant. Is this pessimism on my part?

Taste: This was the best part, it was horrible. It was straight rancid, not even bitter.​

​Overall: What else can I say, than an utter dump. I’m sure, very sure, that there’s worse places in Rome. But the coffee here was bad. Couldn’t finish it, and left it at that.

The setup: Well, there was a machine that was facing the barista. What I could see was the following:​

​Yeah, that’s the owner/barista giving me a ‘what the f*ck’ do you think you’re doing look…​​ we’ll he’s right in giving me that look with what I’m writing! But to make a short point, it was a SAB 3-group E-61 based coffee machine. This has the potential to do 100, no, 1000 times better than this coffee. I couldn’t make out the grinder, but it was a generic brand. It was a classic image, two open bags of coffee upside down on the hopper, the basket was chock full of ground coffee, and there was ground coffee all over the place, literally. This is ‘shabby-chic’ Rome at it’s best.

As to the coffee being served, who knows. I couldn’t read the brand on the bags because they were crumpled and upside down. Above the bar area there was sign for Caffè Perù a traditional Roman roaster based in the heart of Rome. Then, there was a cup, left over from the previous client, that had the following on it: ​

​Caffè Remondi is an Ostia based roaster (on the coast directly south West of Rome), so who knows if this was it, because if you look at the big cup (with sugar in it) next to the espresso machine, there’s yet another espresso roaster advertised there. Who cares what coffee was being served, obviously no justice was being done to any of these!​

Bar Tabacchi, di Carlo Massimo

Circ. Gianicolense, 416

00151 Roma