There is no place in the world like Italy. Believe me. If you’ve ever been you’ll know. Whether your view of it is positive or negative, it’s a place that simply facinates.
No country has such an incredible cultural heritage that’s still very much part of daily life today. No country has contributed so many wonderful dishes to the world, which have become so institutionalized that some people don’t even know anymore that they originated there. No country has had more prime ministers since the end of the second world war – 26 men held the post in 67 years since 1945 vs. 14 in the UK. Of course the list can go on and on and on but I don’t want to bore you with my love for the home of “La Dolce Vita”. This is a blog about coffee after all, isn’t it?
Caffe Americano
When my parents invited me earlier this year to join them again for the amazing Venice Biennale I jumped at the opportunity. Not only because Venice is an incredible place in its own right but also because the Biennale is a fantastic event that anyone who likes art simply cannot miss. Secretly of course, I was also looking forward to exploring the Venetian coffee scene and finding out how Italian coffee compared to the kind of coffee I have been savouring for my blog and business over the past few years. If I only listened to what some fellow coffee fanatics whispered to me via Twitter and Facebook, then I might not even have bothered. But as with many things, you have to form your own opinion before you make a judgement, right?
A very foamy Cappuccino
My quest began immediately after getting off the plane at Venice Marco Polo airport. After buying my Vaproetto ticket to get into town, I swung by the first coffee bar I could find and ordered a Cappuccino. A grumpy looking Barista was working away on a large Espresso machine turning Segafredo’s 100% arabica beans from Costa Rica into something “drinkable”.
Before I knew it I was presented with a huge cup that contained some shimmering foam but radiated hardly any warmth. I scooped through the layer to have a look at what was hidden below, which turned out to be a pale looking brew that smelled slightly burned. Hmmmmmm. I took one sip and concluded that this was definitely nothing to write home about.
The next morning, after spending a lovely first evening overlooking a small canal and drinking Belgian beers, I was on my way towards San Marco when I stopped at a little bar with a lovely terrace and lots of early morning sunshine. The waitress offered me a coffee menu and I settled on an America. The waitress had a snake tattooed on her arm and a piercing formed its eyes of said snake. Tattoos were going to be something that would accompany me through this trip for better and for worse.
Moments later she brought me a little tray with a €4 cup of coffee and a small glass of water on it. Very Italian in appearance, not so great in taste. The coffee tasted burned and bitter. Normally I would have been quite disappointed but I was in friggin’ Venice after all. When you’re surrounded by beautiful crumbling buildings and turquoise canals, everything tastes better. At least you tell yourself that.
The crazy interiors at the Coffee Shit Caffe
Later that morning I met my parents at their hotel in Guidecca and after leaving our bags with the consierge, we headed back towards Venice and the first part of our art adventure at the Arsenale. This stunning complex, which used to house a lot of the goods that Venetian traders brought to this majestic city from all corners of the world is now an integral part of the Biennale, housing a large collection of pieces and several nations’ pavillions.
After a good solid hour of admiring gorgeous to weird installations and paintings we decided to pop into the local coffee bar to have a short break. Here they served Illy beans and charged a very reasonable price of just €1,50 for a cappuccino or a macchiato. My cappuccino had a good temperature and a decent amount of foam but the taste was strangely flat. I tried to have a look across the bar to see what kind of machine and milk the barista was working with but a wall shielded it from my prying eyes and the waitress couldn’t give me any useful info.
Three coffees into my adventure and I was still trying to find a great cup of coffee in Venice.
View from Hotel Monaco’s terrace
On Saturday we decided to have a long breakfast and relaxing start before jumping on our hotel to Venice shuttle boat and diving into the second large art complex of the Biennale, the Giardini. As we approached this slightly off the beaten track area, we passed a number of huge yachts that were moored along the quay. I kept wondering who the owners were and whether they were all rich Oligarchs who would be hosting lavish parties at night.
Marrocchino at Caffe del Doge
Inside the Giardini, you’ll find a number of national pavillions which have been here since the 1910’s. Quite amazing actually. At the backside of the main building you can chillax at the Coffee Shit Caffe, which is a futuristic looking venue that can easily make you feel dizzy.
I decided to order an Americano from the bar. I didn’t quite feel like an Espresso at this point. What I got was a shabby looking paper cup with a boiling brew inside that wafted off a very bitter smell. These were Illy beans, once again, however it seemed the Barista on duty here wanted to do everything in her power to make every bit of flavour that might still have been there disappear completely. Reminded me of a Radiohead song.
I washed the bitter taste from my tongue with a big gulp of aqua frizzante and decidedly sucked on a mint for the next hour. I was really starting to get a bit frustrated. I was in the land of espresso and cappuccino after all! Why was it so hard to find a decent cup of coffee?
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Before leaving for Venice I had put out a call for help on Twitter and one of my followers had recommended one place that seemed to be one of the few in town where they really knew what they were doing. Caffe del Doge it was called. It might sound a bit pompous but if the word on the street was true, they definitely served the best coffee in town.
After finishing at the Giardini and having a lazy lunch in the sun, I dragged my parents to where Google Maps told me that Caffe del Doge was. It took two paper maps and several iPhone checks to navigate our way through the narrow streets of this historic city before we finally arrived to where my pin told me I should be. Strangely enough, there was no Caffe del Doge anywhere. I did some investigating in the shops nearby and found out that this was apparently the location of the roastery and there was nowhere to actually DRINK the coffee. Aahhhhhh.
A friendly shopkeeper then penciled into my map where the caffe was located, which was of course not where it was but I felt like I was slowly but surely getting there. After asking five more friendly Venetians for directions I finally stumbled upon what I hoped would be “Il templo del caffe”.
Caffe Americano
Despite the slighly tacky interiors I could see some potential here. There were single origin beans from places like Ethiopia, India, Guatemala, Kenya and a number of other countries and two high quality machines that were being employed to turn coffee grind into liquid goodness. One La Cimbali three group and one Faema two group.
Okay, okay, expectations were getting high… “Hi there, I heard you serve the best coffee in Venice?” I said to the girl behind the bar. “Coffee”, she said. “Ehm, yes yes, I just meant I heard you have the best coffee in town?” was my hopeful response.
“Coffee,” she said again. Argh. “Yes, we do! What can we get you?” said another girl who had her back to us but clearly sensed I was struggling to communicate with the first girl and hurried towards over help. A hipster dude who was trying on different sunglasses while blatently flirting with the first chick and who complemented me on my “awesome shorts” also said: “Yes, it’s-e great-e coffee-e. You’ll-e like-e.”
Sign says it all
Phew. I followed hipster dude’s recommendation and first went for a Marrocchino, which is a shot of Espresso with a layer of chocolate syrup some milkfoam and lots of chocolate sprinkles. I was getting slightly horrified when the first girl wouldn’t stop adding sprinkles but after settling down outside to savour this exotic concoction, I have to admit, it was actually rather good. Like a super intense Mocca, which is one of my secret addictions. I was hungry for more.
After only a few minutes of being coffee-less I couldn’t bare it any longer and I ran back inside to get more of that stuff. The second girl immediately saw the longing in my eyes and asked what I would like to try next. I suggested using their Yirgacheffe to make a lovely cappuccino – I didn’t quite dare ask if they knew what a flat white was – to which she responded: “No, I wouldn’t use that one. It doesn’t combine well with milk. Try the India one instead.”
Oh ho! I was all ears. “Sure, you are the master!” I proclaimed and exchanged an awkward glance with the hipster dude who was still staring at my shorts. Italians are such practical people, he had his necklace tattooed around his neck. He never has to worry about taking it off at airport security or losing it in a mugging.
Cappuccino at Caffe del Doge
The cappuccino I was then presented with finally looked like a well made cup of coffee. It came in the right size cup and even featured a fern. I had not seen such a thing since Amsterdam. I had almost forgotten what it looked like. And the taste was great. Too bad the milk was slightly too cold but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
That same evening my parents and I had a wonderful dinner at Osteria del Botti, where I tried things like home-made Gnocci with a spicy crab and tomato sauce and watched massive cruise ships pass on by on their way out of the city. Those things still astonish me sometimes. How can a colossal thing like that stay afloat? Well, except the Costa Concordia. That was a real tragedy.
Bar at Caffe del Doge
I decided to have an after-dinner macchiato to help me digest the mountain of food I had just devoured and to see if restaurants were a more reliable place to get a good cup of coffee than their caffe cousins. Here they served Moka Efti coffee, which I had never heard of. The macchiato was pretty flat and the milk was almost all bubbles. I drank it anyway. Gulp. Gulp.
Afterwards I went to bed to let the whole art, food and coffee experience sink in and hopefully lull me into a nice deep sleep.
The next morning I woke up feeling nice and fresh and heard my mum knocking on my door. “Alex! Alex! Are you ready for more art?” I have to admit, and this stays between us, I started getting some pain in my left leg near the hip. I mean I am turning 30 this year but surely I cannot yet be in need of a hip replacement?
Stunning colours
My parents and I headed over to Zattere and popped into the stunning Punta della Dogana to check out Pinault’s latest art offering. Later we also visited the Peggy Guggenheim collection, which was way too packed for a space so small. To rest our legs, we sat down in the caffe and ordered coffee. Unfortunately this particular coffee was so bad I’m not even going to expand on this.
We headed back to the hotel to have some lunch and then I already had to leave to catch my boat and then bus to Treviso airport. A few days in Venice flew by in an instant and in hindsight I was quite astonished at the amount of distance that we covered during this time. Although this year’s Biennale was not as good as in previous years, it’s always a spectacular experience.
When it comes to the coffee though, as is the case with the food, Venice is not a place that will make you fall off your stool. Of course it’s easy to say the coffee was terrible but one also has to appreciate that Italian coffee culture is quite different to the kind of coffee revolution that I have been blogging about. Italian coffee culture, like most of its culture in general, is all about tradition and traditions are quite hard to part with. Especially in a place like Italy but that’s also why I adore this country so much.
Update 30.09.2015
It’s been two years since I wrote this article and funnily enough, it’s the number one article that comes up in Google when you search for coffee in Venice.
Last weekend I went back to the gorgeous lagoon city to visit this year’s Biennale and I had a chance to visit a few coffee bars along the way. Unfortunately, not much has changed there in terms of finding specialty coffee so not much to report on that topic.
I did however drink one of the most expensive cappuccini I’ve ever had at Hotel Monaco just off Piazza San Marco. The only real reason to go to this hotel, in my honest opinion, is to enjoy the wonderful views from its terrace, which of course come at a hefty price.
A proud price list
A tiny cappuccino costs a whopping €8, an Irish Coffee will set you back €20. Well, if you want views, you gotta put down some dollar. The coffee itself was ok although it left a slightly furry feeling on my tongue.
One thing I noticed in various places, be it the airport café or the coffee bar at the Giardini, the baristas either lack any kind of skill required to make a decent coffee or they just can’t be bothered. There was no cleaning of the baskets after a shot was pulled, no tamping of coffee grounds and no real care with regards to pulling a decent espresso. Many places use long life milk that makes the cappuccino taste flat.
Cappuccino at Hotel Monaco
I suppose there is some consolation though. Most of the time I didn’t pay more than €1,50 for my coffee (except at Hotel Monaco) and if that’s all you want, a cup of coffee I mean, then Italy at least remains true to its cultural hertiage. Coffee is not a luxury, its a human right!
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