SILVESTRI CAFFÈ, VIA APPIA NUOVA 194, 00183 ROMA

Rating: Standard, mid-rage Roman coffee

The Silvestri Caffè is on the Via Appia Nuova, between the Piazza Re di Roma and the San Giovanni in Laterano. It’s a small monolocale, but boy, it’s really nicely decorated. It’s got some cool raw coffee bags outside for décor, and I liked that. Inside you find a lot of white washed wood furniture, with chandeliers and grey pinstriped wallpaper. It is of course looking for the shabby chic style that most upper class Romans like, and well, I didn’t mind as it’s a very welcomed change from the purely shabby cafes that tend to haunt the San Giovanni area. The barista was a young tall and very courteous guy who took my order with pleasure. While I waited and had my coffee there were two very stylish girls, teenagers, arguing at length about their friendship. One simply wasn’t being a good friend to the other, and well… it sounded more like a needy person arguing with their couple. Very cute, but also, makes one think about real relationships. When I went to pay, even the owner of the bar, who was at the end of the locale crunching numbers said ‘mamma mia!’. Nice to connect with folks at a bar. I simply had a great experience in this bar, and it’s nice to know it’s up and running.

This is what I got served:

Presentation: A nice small slim barrel shaped cup that I recognized now as the new Marziali coffee design. I like it. It was also served with a small shot glass full of water and a spoon in it. Fun, I hadn’t seen that before. I was given a cup of water after I had asked. All very professional.

Temperature of Cup: Very good temperature. I was happy.

Quantity: Very short shot, almost a ristretto. Good to go.

Temperature: It was on the mark, as you can guess, I’m a happy camper here.

Volume/Consistency: Oily, slippery, had a feeling of wet silk. Not bad.

Crema: It was lighter than in the pix, tightly packed bubbles and persistent. It didn’t’ make an impression as if it was adding volume to the coffee.

Odor: Very dark roasted coffee. A little too much for me.

Taste: It was very sharp, strong bitterness, and it opened to a flat plateau of taste that tended to go towards rancid, but never got there, fortunately.

Overall: It was a very strong punchy coffee that is characteristic of this roaster Marziali Caffè. The experience could have been a bit richer, oilier, but it wasn’t, and it probably isn’t the barista’s fault, but the coffee which seems to reach it’s limit. Given that it was pushing towards rancidness, I give this a mid to lower end Roman coffee grading.

The setup: They had a beautiful Wega E-61 based espresso machine, with an Astoria grinder. The coffee is the Roman-Based Marziali Caffè, which tends to be uber super strong dark roasted coffee.