PICASSO CAFFÈ, VIALE GUGLIELMO MARCONI 302, 00146 ROMA

Rating: Standard, excellent Espresso in Rome

So, I’m still awe-struck, or simply dumfounded at the amount of cafes that are in Rome. I feel like I want to start talking to the owners of these cafes to see how much they really make a month, because a lot of times there’s literally 4 or 5 cafes on a single city block here in Rome. It’s crazy. I guess folks can live on very very little here (or rents are low, or I don’t know!). But whatever, I started to survey the Via Guglielmo Marconi, and I found this very nice place: The Picasso Caffè Bistrot (Here's the Instagram). It’s a bit snobbish in it’s clean cut, light wood, sharp edges, but it’s nice. It has an air of fresh, modern, and a place like you could use to have a work café meeting, etc. Its totally unpretentious, yet elegant. I liked it. Before I walked in, I spied the beautiful Fiorenzato lever espresso machine and just couldn’t pass it up!

Asking for a coffee got me this:

Presentation: Nice. It was a large cup, decorated with fun coffee bean and coffee leaves, and the logo of the roaster on it. Not bad. It was a larger cup than I usually like, and the shot was a full piston-load of the Fiorenzato. Which, technically, is a standard espresso shot. Water came up without a flinch after I asked for it. The spoon was fun, and elegant, yet cheap looking at the same time. It did have a flair that was nice.

Temperature of Cup: It was good, not hot, actually tepid. And damn it, this is POSITIVE!

Quantity: A bit long for my taste, or for what it looked like in the cup.

Temperature: It was tepid too. I was glad, I could actually taste different things in the brew!! I remember back about 8 years ago when I had my first ‘cold’ espresso shot at Verve in Santa Cruz, CA… a revelation!

Volume/Consistency: It was very light, not heavy, and silky. A very fine consistency that was not watery, runny nor dirty. It was very delicate, not full of oil, but simply light.

Crema: It was thin, and started to dissipate about halfway through my drinking experience. It was uniform, and pointed towards the fact that the shot should have been ‘held’ about ¾ of the way through, and the espresso pulled out. It would have been a bit better in my opinion.

Odor: Very light smell of roasted coffee. No fruits, no bells or whistles. But something there is positive!

Taste: Here was the best part, it was a flavorful espresso. Very good actually. At first it was a mild bitter taste, nothing heavy. Then it opened up to an acidic plateau that opened up to the sweet chocolaty-caramel like flavor of the finish. I was glad!

Overall: I think that it was a very good espresso. It was full of flavor, not scalding hot, delicate, and simply enjoyable. As you can see from the sweets below, the place has a lot to offer and the coffee is definitely worth stopping by for.

The setup: As I said above, they have a really nice, brand new Fiorenzato ‘Piazza San Marco’ model espresso machine. The grinder I couldn’t identify… but didn’t look as hot as the Fiorenzato! The coffee was Oro Caffè, this is a North-Italian based roaster, near Udine (north of the Veneto) and I could really taste the difference! It wasn’t the typical roman char-roasted variety!! Very much appreciated! As you can see the owners of this café are really proud of this roaster.

They have their products up for sale, and also even push their ‘capsule’ coffee.

What I liked about this place is that they have the popular buy 9 get the 10th coffee free.

This is fidelity program is everywhere in the US and other places in Europe, but here in Rome… I’ll admit that it’s the first place I ran into it!! Bravo!