MARITOZZARO BAR CAFFÈ, VIA ETTORE ROLLI 50, 00153 ROMA

Jul 7, 2016
2 min read

Rating: Standard, low-end Roman coffee

A friend of mine had told me about a mythical place in Rome, near the Trastevere station where you could get the best Maritozzo’s (see the picture below, but these are simply a large brioche like bun that’s the size of a big pastrami sandwhich cut in half, and filled with fresh whipped cream, sounds crazy disgusting, but until you’ve tried it…. Don’t judge!). So as I walk in Trastevere I run into the Il Maritozzaro Bar Caffè, and well, they’re a bar, so I thought, why not. But I’ll admit I didn’t have a Maritozzo… I’ll save that for some time in the wee hours of the morning when they’re freshly backed for folks getting out of the nightclubs. The place is quite new inside, seems redecorated recently, all white and silver, and very clean, clinical, and that’s not bad. The outside is very historic and old looking, nice contrast. The owner and barista were talking about some gossip, and an old guy having coffee was complaining, as usual, about something in his live.

There’s what I got:

Presentation: Nice thin slender and smallish cup. I liked it. It was sleek and went with the décor of the place. Cool. The brand it had on it wasn’t the best, but well… at pastry places like this in Rome coffee is ‘stra-amaro’, that is, extra bitter. No water was offered.

Temperature of Cup: Yeah, of course! The cup was freaking piping hot! Oh lord another one of those coffees I thought… this week has been brutal in terms of coffee quality.

Quantity: It was short, shorter than an ounce (30ml) and I was glad for this.

Temperature: Once I waited for ages, listening to the three guys chatter up some conversation that had like 5 different topics and about different thigns at the same time, the coffee finally cooled down and was decent.

Volume/Consistency: It was a thin coffee. That’s what happens when you boil the crap out of it of course! It was slippery, paper thin and no real thickness or body to it. Oils? What are those things?

Crema: It was a bit overextracted. As you can see, it started out great, and then created a volcanic island on the top left of the cup. Looking at it as I waited for it to cool I could tell that it wasn’t any great thing waiting underneath.

Odor: Nope, not there, not happening with these beans and this extraction.

Taste: It was thin bitter and had a light metallic aftertaste. The machine looked clean enough, so I think it was the roast.

Overall: It was bitter but in a light way, it wasn’t too bad, nor rancid. It was simply wimpy and lacking body or bite. It was low-end Roman coffee. Could have been worse, but with just a little TLC it would have been world’s better.

The setup: They had a nice and to my eyes, enviable Astoria espresso machine and an Astoria grinder. The coffee was Profili Caffè, a local roman roaster that does very uber-dark roasts which Romans tend to enjoy.