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Rating: Standard, upper level Roman Coffee
The Caffetteria dei Gracchi, in the Prati area near the Vatican, has all the elements to become somebody’s daily hang-out place. It’s not over pretentions, but has a quirky style (large mono-blocks of red, green, blue colors inside, ceiling, chairs, etc.), it has rather charming décor depending on your taste (i.e. see the flower arrangement on the corner of the street), very friendly staff, and really great coffee. There’s tons of seating on the outside and inside to hang out, and nobody pushing you to move on as in most Roman cafes. Let’s see what’s going on with its brew.
Asking for a coffee got me this:
Presentation: Water was given immediately, without asking, and before the espresso was done being extracted. The chocolate/candy with the cup is fortuitous, but another nice touch. The cup was a teal blue that played of the same color on the café’s ceiling, while the saucer, again playing off another color decorating the locale. This was fun. I liked it. Take a look below at all the colors of the cups on the espresso machine… The spoon was a traditional work-horse, and was there to do its job.
Temperature of Cup: The cup was rather warm, but not scalding. It was good and not over the top dammed hot.
Quantity: It was a precise espresso, not towards the ristretto, nor towards the doppio. It was on the mark.
Temperature: The coffee was good, it was brewed towards the upper end of temperature, but again, not sky-high.
Volume/Consistency: It was nice, it was light, creamy, thickish, fluffy, and silky. I was very happily surprised by this. It was almost as if I was drinking a macchiato it was so rich.
Crema: The crema was just a tad over extracted as you can see the rancid point in the center, but it was not cakey, but buoyant, persistent and oily.
Odor: Yes, indeed, there was a very dark-roast smell to this coffee. I was glad!
Taste: It was syrupy and not rancid in any way, it was tending towards the sweet and while all confined in a very limited taste spectrum, it was very flavorful. By far the better coffee that I had in this area.
Overall: This was a very controlled and well made espresso. The presentation, temperature, crema, smell were all on the mark, and while definitely nothing like a third-wave coffee, it was a very good representation of what a traditional Roman coffee can be in its best versions. This was not the best of Roman coffee, but definitely up there. Very much worth a try.
The setup: They had a nice workhorse, a La Cimbali M39 that I’ve seen in dozens and donzens of locales. The grinder was a boxy Casadio Conico model grinder. The coffee being served was Tintori Caffè. This is the Piramide area based Roman roaster. I’ve had very good coffee from them, and this is one of better versions I’ve tasted. But I do admit that the barista (see photo below) knew what he was doing. Look at the espresso being extracted in that glass cup. The crema is about 80% of the cup! Great!
Caffetteria dei Gracchi
M.V.M. S.R.L.
Via dei Gracchi 108-110-112
00192 Roma
Tel. 06 324 0651