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Rating: Poor, rancid Illy coffee in the heart of Rome
Boy what a nice surprise to walk into the gallery facing the Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri church (the Diocletian Baths), and find the Dagnino Caffè Pasticceria (yeah the link is dead at the time of writing this). But yes, what a nice surprise. Most Romans know it’s there, because it’s been there since the yesterdays of Rome’s 1950 glory. But I walked in on it, and said, damn, this is an huge place! It’s got two stories, and two different interior sections, one a pastry shop and another a cafe proper. Let’s skip the typical tourist food-locale review, and just skip to business.
Asking for a coffee deep in the right hands side interior of the cafe got me this:
Presentation: OK, I am not anti-Illy, but when a traditional cafe or locale serves a mass-produced coffee product, I am disappointed. So with this bias, the ‘industrial’ cafe has to be damned good. And I’ve had plenty of great Illy coffee here in Rome, so the competition is tough. No water offered, but the place was friendly enough to surely ask for it and get a nice cup in return, and probably for free.
Temperature of Cup: It was warm, inviting me to hold it in my hand without fear of 3rd degree burns. Great!
Quantity: It was a good, just right, espresso. The Illy cup is round, large and feels like I’m having a coffee in an old US cereal bowl (I’d expect Fruit Loops or something in there!). But it was on the spot a definition of an espresso length coffee.
Temperature: Hmm.. Good temperature! We’re going somewhere here!
Volume/Consistency: Hm… watery. Thin thin thin, extra Gillette razor thin coffee. Very runny.
Crema: It was shiny, of course, but grainy, thin and non persistent. Didn’t look like it came out of a live plant, but out of a chemical plant.
Odor: Uff, here there was odor indeed, but it was charred coffee odor. No wonder the crema looked as it did.
Taste: It was extremely rancid. I was missing one of these very astringent charry, tar-like drinks. Here it was again, staring at me. I tried to finish it…
But just couldn’t do it. I have too much hair on my chest already to want to produce yet more… so I had let this fish go back to the stream…
Overall: It is indeed a pity because the place was so cool. So full of stuff that a simple, locally roasted coffee (whatever, Gran Santos, or Gima, or something with some taste profile) would have changed the whole thing and made it a first class place. As it is now, it is unfortunately a poor Roman coffee experience.
The setup: They had a solid Faema E92, with a Faema Grinder. The coffee, was as we can see in the picture, Illy. Usually a solidly dependable label, but here they seem to need some ‘reeducating’ on that front. Yet, and just yet, maybe they brew it this way in order to counter balance all the sweets that are offered on the other side of the place. I find that most pastry-sweets cafes have super bitter coffee….
Dagnino Caffè Pasticceria,
Galleria Esedra S.R.L.
Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando 75
00185 Roma
Tel. 06 481 8660
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