MARIOTTI CAFFÈ, VIA AGONALE 5-7, 00187 ROMA

Rating: Standard, low-end Roman coffee

At the northern end of the Piazza Navona, that wonderful, crazy circus-like speedway of heyday that…. Uhm… is still is a tourist nutty wonderland, is the Mariotti Caffè. It’s a typical Roman establishment- that is, it’s a café, gelateria, panino-theque, etc. etc. Simply, a place to stop, eat, put down a few euros on the bar before you leave. Nothing wrong with that. This place has the feel of a 1950s ice-cream parlor. The place was bustling with activity. As soon as you walk in you’re attacked with the Q: ‘What would you like’. The idea is to get you out as soon as you plunk down your change. The barista, was a tough looking tattoed guy who’s erogenous upkeep - so typical of Rome - gave him an admittedly good looking aspect. He took my order without a problem and continued to have a heated debate with the cashier ‘owner looking’ guy.

This is what I got:

Presentation: Classic espresso cup. Not too big, upward fluted, no frills. The spoon was thin, slender and able to mix any sugar you can put without a problem.

Temperature of Cup: Sheeeez, was it hot. Yes, the cup was ultra hot! Man, I had to wait there and listen to the super loud music, and the poor tourists trying to speak over the music to place their order for at least 5 minutes before I could handle the drink.

Quantity: Solid one ounce (30ml) espresso. No flinching here.

Temperature: Well, by the time I had it, it was good. But I had to wait a long time. I guess if you’re here, at piazza Navona, at 2pm on a weekeday you’ve got time on your hands, and shouldn’t complain. I guess, no?

Volume/Consistency: Oily, slippery, wet. Thin, and fluid and no graininess. No necessarily bad, just thin and sticky.

Crema: Dark, very dark, cakey, and when I was having the coffee, it opened up in the center, and left a ring on the cup that tried to add some substance to my drinking experience.

Odor: Yup! A dark-charbroiled, Carl’s Junior 1990s type hamburger type commercial dark roasted coffee- made a shiver run through my spine!

Taste: Yup, again. It was very bitter. Sharply bitter, astringent, and almost, well, hell, touching rancidness but not full rancid nastiness.

Overall: Yup. Thrice. I finished it because indeed I had nothing better to do than try to give this coffee a decent review. It was touching on rancid, it had no profile other than bitterness, and well, wasn’t any memorable. But it isn’t at the bottom of the barrel, it was just a low-end coffee. It seemed as if the barista got pleasure out of torturing the people gave him his paycheck. That’ morbid type of pleasure. It is after all, a café that’s on Agony street! Hell, what other type of coffee can we expect???

The setup: It was solid for some hell-of-an espresso. It was a classic Astoria E-61 based espresso machine. The grinder was the black Astoria/Mazzer type, and the coffee was a Roman based roaster of char-roasted, black death-like coffee: Caffè Profili. I’ve had better than this, so don’t use this place as a measuring stick.