CAFFETTERIA DI LU, VIA DI BRAVETTA 327-329, 00164 ROMA

Rating: Standard, carefully prepared Roman coffee

I walked into the Cafe Caffetteria di Lu at the middle of the day, and it was rather empty. It’s in the NorthWest Monteverde area (Villini neighborhood). The interior was nice, almost too preppy, and had a TV on with what seemed to be the owner/barista and a friend watching. The barista who served me was young, red-headed with nice tattoos. She had the making of a hipster. And I looked at the espresso machine and was delighted to see two separate types of beans in two different grinders with direct-feed, direct-pour baskets. I thought, ‘great’, maybe this is it! Maybe there’s going to be a third wave establishment. It wasn’t, but it was still decent.​

Asking for a coffee gets you the following:​

​Presentation: No water offered, and the drip on the cup was from the barsita, not me. It was a small fluted cup and I liked this. Given the damned heat at 2pm, I would have liked a glass of water. I’m sure she would have given it to me if I’d asked.

Temperature of Cup: Damn, the cup was blasting hot. Too hot, and I thought that the experience was going to go south quickly.

Quantity: The amount was perfect, it was a short espresso, not ristretto, but conservative and short.

Temperature: She didn’t flush the group head or anything, but in the time it took to cool the cup, the espresso was good.

Volume/Consistency: Ah… Nice! The first time I get a real creamy, silky espresso! It was great to taste!

Crema: Thin but very persistent. Blond and not a lot of oil content, so the temperature of extraction was too high.​

Odor: Fragrant, nice. Deep, dark coffee smell.

Taste: Bitter but not rancid. Not spectacular, nor multifaceted, but a very decent cup of traditional Roman coffee.​

​Overall: I would say that this is standard. They had an amazing setup, it could have been a 50 times better espresso, but they missed the mark halfway down the process. They didn’t fine-tune their machine, roast, temp, grinds…. so the effect is similar to other bars that don’t give a rat’s you know what about their coffee.

The Setup: This has to be one of the nicest setups I’ve seen in Rome so far, and this is in a locale you wouldn’t expect it in! The machine is a E-61 based three-group San Remo, these are excellent machines and squirt out a super good coffee. They had two small Mazzer grinders that were a beauty to look at, all digital programming for the exact dose! What a setup!!​

The coffee was AleCaffe a North Eastern Roman roaster (Monterotondo), this is a brand of coffee distributed by Pianeta Bar (See the promo below). I had the Negrito mix on the right. And the barista opened a new bag of the Red Caribe while I was there. the potential for this roaster/coffee machine was a lot better. But still, very decent.​

Bar Gastronomia Caffetteria di Lu,

di Marrone Maria Luisa

Via di Bravetta, 327/329

00164 Roma