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Standard: Standard, mid to low end Roman coffee
The Il Cornettone Caffè (FB page here) is what the name suggests, a wonderland of sweet-crazy croissants of all kinds and other dough sweets that give you 10 times the fat and calorie intake than a McDonald double whatever hamburger would. The difference that here in Rome the ‘cornetto’ is a cultural institution and thus, can’t be ‘examined, nor questioned’. Go figure. But it’s damned good, I’ll say. Either way, the place is literally hugging the street and has lots of light coming in. On the left hand you have the gargantuan display of sweets, at the back of the café you have the bar. Check out the virtual-tour of the place their website has here. There you have two large machines staring at you and then two hipster baristas, a burnet running the espressos and a bleached blond taking orders and handing out the java. They’re very visible tattoos let you think about life and ponder existential questions while you have coffee for 20 seconds as normal Romans do. They were very courteous and very meticulous in their organization and efficiency. They were there to spit out customers as fast as they came in.
Asking for a coffee got me this:
Presentation: This is what I got. I liked it, it had the bar’s logo on it and the cup was not terribly large, it was rather thick (reminiscent of what southern Italians like) and it had an air of vintage to it. Maybe it was the color of the logo on the cup and the writing, I don’t know. It reeked 1960s to me… No water given, but it was offered immediately for others (I assume regulars that tend to ask for it?).
Temperature of Cup: Not boiling white hot. I’m good to go.
Quantity: It was a very short shot. I’m good to go.
Temperature: It was warm, not scalding. I’m good to go!
Volume/Consistency: Thin, not very thick, tasted runny. That is an especially thin consistency that falls easily between your teeth without much grit or resistance. Too thin for my liking.
Crema: Dar, with a small little white island of light-brown bubbles in the center. Over extracted in my opinion. Too little coffee in the protafilter for a shot so small as this to be over extracted!
Odor: Dark-deep burnt coffee, not very pleasant. A first for this brand.
Taste: It was bitter, but not rancid. It was very flat in taste, and not very highly profiled. Monotone, and no taste spectrum to speak of.
Overall: It was a mid to low end espresso. I’ve had some of extremely good ‘Roman’ robust styled espresso from this brand, so this was not up to par in comparison. However, and this is now really speaking from experience, there have been very few cafes which offer a very specialized selection of pastries and whose coffee is not extremely bitter rancid. This place offered not so hot coffee, but the vibe seems to be done so that you have a sharp contrast to the sweets you're eating... so I'm sure the taste of this shot would have been different if'd been sinking my teeth in one of the sweet custard filled croissants!!
The setup: It was facing inwards as in most bars in the US, so that all you got was the back of the machine and a nice brand logo. So I saw that it was an impressive set of two side-by-side Faemas, but I couldn’t see what model they were. The grinder is probably Faema as well, since I’m almost never seen a Faema espresso machine not accompanied by the same brand grinder. The coffee is one I usually like (for being a Roman coffee). It is the Golden Brazil Coffee. It is based out of Ardea (Rome) and it is basically on the south west coast, about 40 mins drive out from Rome city-center.
Il Cornettone SRL
A capitale Ridotto
Via Oderisi da Gubbio 215-221
00146 Roma
Tel. 06 668 7922