LUCKY BAR CAFFÈ, VIA CONTE VERDE 37, 00185 ROMA

Rating: Standard, mid to low end Lazio Coffee

Coming up to the Lucky Bar Caffè I it felt it had an aspect that was more fitting to a really bad neighborhood, I guess the Esquilino neighborhood isn’t the best, but is quite safe compare to crap meighborhoods in Los Angeles, or NYC… After I walked in I realized why the place was like that. It was a Neapolitan styled café. And yes, in Naples, it is straight out ghetto, so they brought that back up to Rome. Inside I found what you’ll also find in Naples, really warm and kind people. I was asked what I wanted and then was swarmed with tons of other folk that came in. Everybody was a friend of the three people working behind the bar. And then, as I took my cup very slowly, a large group of cops came in to have their coffee. Definitely a place loved by locals. There were some tables on the left side with a TV .

This is what I got:

Presentation: Yup, nice squat fat and thick Neapolitan styled cup of coffee. Water was served immediately and it was sparkling. Nice. All was in order.

Temperature of Cup: Yup, it was hot but not boiling. I was surprised, as in Naples, you have to drink liquid lava.

Quantity: It was a short cup, not too big, and looked just right in the cup.

Temperature: It was good. Funny thing, the barista cooled the group head with a very long flush before she poured my drink, this is the second time I see this in Rome, brava!

Volume/Consistency: It was lighter than expected. Not as oily as I expected and while it did coat my mouth with a thin layer of coffee it wasn’t as rich as I wanted. But this of course is related too to the dark

roast that this coffee is…

Crema: It was dark, somewhat uniform and started to dissipate in the middle.

By the time I had drank half of the cup, it was all on the rim (see below):

Odor: Dark roasted coffee and felt I could sense a nutty warm scent too.

Taste: It was bitter up front, a tad acidic, and not rancid. It was flat in taste and the finish gave way to a very dark burnt coffee flavor.

Overall: It wasn’t as exciting as I expected, it was dark, charred flavor of coffee and didn’t leave me wanting more. However, maybe with sugar, as almost everybody took their espresso, it would have improved?

The setup: They had a beautiful espresso machine. A four group old style Faema based lever espresso machine. It was an Izzò Caffè brand. This Frosinone (Lazio) based roaster also manufactures coffee machines that technically should do wonders for their coffee. The grinder was a Fiorenzato F6. The coffee, of course was Izzò Caffè.