SANTORO BAR CAFFÈ, VIA LUCA VALERIO 16-18, 00146 ROMA

Rating: Standard, mid-range Roman coffee

It seems that the cafes in this part of town (East of Viale Marconi) don’t like to give names to their locales, they’re just content with calling everything ‘Bar’ and nothin’ more. Well, I’ll call this place Santoro Bar Caffè after its owner’s name, since hell, this is the only thing that differentiates any of the 100s of cafes with the same name, either ‘bar’ or more inventive ‘snack bar’. When I walked in there was a young girl (In her early 20s) having a discussion with a customer, nothing bad, but a heated discussion about something. Then a waiter came in, also in his early 20s and got into the thick of it. When the customer left, the waiter and the girl started talking about orders of who they had to take coffee to in the neighborhood. It turns out they were the kids of the owners, husband and wife, who were running the place. It’s a small locale, with some tables outside, and a decent modern interior. All very polite, and made me feel welcome.

Let’s see what their coffee was about:

Presentation: This is what I got. Again, I don’t love Palombini, but there’s something of this cup design that reminds me of Formula 1 or something. All in order. No water offered.

Temperature of Cup: It was warm, but not scalding. Good!

Quantity: Shorter shot in this rather larger cup. Good.

Temperature: It was good, not warm not scalding. I could start drinking it with ease right away.

Volume/Consistency: Thinner than what I expected. It was smooth. Light, silky and a thin sheen of oil in it’s innards. I liked it!

Crema: Nice, almost very nice in my opinion! Just a tad over extracted, but boy, it looked delicious!

Odor: Very dark roasted smell, not super inviting, but I’ll take a crumb when there’s nothing else to hang on. Good again!

Taste: It was light, bitter start that then crescendoed as I went forward. It didn’t become overbearing, but simply it was a plateau of strong very sharp bitterness that then started to ease off after I finished it. It wasn’t complex, and quite flat. This is normal from Palombini.

Overall: So it’s a solid mid range coffee. It’s Palombini, so that already says tons of good things about the baristas, Palombini can be uber rancid pungent in my opinion, and here, well it was very good compared to other places I’ve had.

The setup: They had a vintage Faema E87. Hell, the exact same Faema I had at home!! Nostalgia!! The grider I couldn’t see, and the coffee was the Rome based roaster Palombini Caffè. Nuff said. I couldn't really photograph the machine, but I got a shot of the owners and their daughter...