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Rating: Standard, low-end northern Italian coffee
The Piccolo Bar Caffè has been around since 1947. It’s also, like the Bar Belli, right in the heart of Trastevere, on the Viale di Trastevere, and on the spot where hundreds of thousands of tourists pass by every year. The location is amazing. Yet, what do we find? We find another family run business that seems to have run out of steam. I had some amazing breakfasts pastries in this place in past years, and while those objects of delight are still there, the coffee… well…. just read on. The locale is small (i.e. the piccolo part of the name) and all it’s tables are outside. The Barista I was tended by was an older woman having a cigarette outside. I’ve been there when the original owner’s son (who himself is now an older gentleman) is tending the bar, and like the barista today, he’s super nice and accommodating. But this place has all the elements to make it a real nice establishment, the’ management’ would need some new spirit.
After getting a nice introduction to the day’s weather forecast from the barista who was sitting outside having a smoke and complaining about the humidity, I got the following:
Presentation: The cup was served without fuss, nor with a cup of water. But since she saw I was a foreigner she probably thought I didn’t know what was up. But, either way, she probably would have given me a cup of water free of charge had I asked.
Temperature of Cup: Not ultra scalding as in lots of other places, but damned hot.
Quantity: Short shot given the size of the cup.
Temperature: By the time that I had it, it was good an drinkable.
Volume/Consistency: Watery, thinner than a bad drip coffee.
Crema: Very thin, very blond, non persistent.
Odor: Nowhere to be found.
Taste: Argh, bitter, very bitter and bordering on rancid, but it didn’t plateau there, so …
Overall: This was a lower-end coffee. Not poor, but almost I’d say. the coffee was ultra thin, no oils and seemed to be done without attention to the end product. It’s borderline poor let’s say.
The setup: Man, it was dirty, coffee grounds all over the place. The espresso machine looked like a E61 1960s Faema, but not sure if it was or not. The grinder (look at the basket lid!) seemed like an old Astoria or Fiorenzato, at best a Mazzer. Then the nice touch was the open jar of Nutella on top of the machine, which surely made the Nutella nice and liquidy! The coffee being roasted was Caffè Sun, this is a coffee roaster based on the Adriatic, in Romagna (near San Marino).
These are some lifeless pix I took when the locale was closed.
Piccolo Bar Caffè,
di Ruscelli Claudio,
Piazza Sidney Sonnino, 11
00153 Roma