Dicono di noi:
Caffe Braccia/Lele & Martha Café, 57 Viale Aventino, Rome 00153.
Caffe Braccia has been a long-term coffee/cappuccino stop for us. It’s a handy five minutes-walk from the Porta San Paolo/Rome terminus on the Ostia/S.Paolo line when heading into town along the Viale Aventino – the café spills out over the pavement with a handful of chairs/tables, providing a bar for locals and equally, catching a regular (and casual) passing trade.
The descriptor ‘long term’ harks back 30 years too - when the pavement was much narrower, shade trees had not been planted in the pavement and when the bar was one of few close to popular tourist sites nearby - Forum, Coliseum, Terme di Caracalla in the one direction, and Porta San Paolo/gate/wall, Piramide Cestio, Aventine Hill/keyhole/view in the other. In earlier days the bar shared one side of the Aventino with shops selling all kinds of merchandise to the local community - autoricambi, ferramenta, cartoleria/servizi di stampa, alimentari, tabaccaio and more.
They have all gone - replaced by light food restaurants catering mainly for morning to late afternoon diners/snackers/coffee aficionardos, although there are also a couple of traditional late evening restaurants. Now you can eat all kinds of salads, pizze, pasta alternatives but also Italian, Thai, Chinese & Japanese. In the bars there are brioche, cornetti, torte, dolce & coffee/tea, popular alcohols/juices/soft drinks. There’s an occasional gelateria. Tourists have replaced the locals. The community shops ‘around the corner’ have shifted into the neighbourhoods or gone. Local people are generally not yet buying their weekly staples ‘on-line’.
So, convenience is a big plus for the Café Braccia and not simply for that welcome morning cappuccino/brioche, but when walking out from the office after lunch – taking time to share a break with a colleague/friend, enjoying a change of scenery and finishing with an expresso al fresco. Since inside working spaces have became smoke-free, many local cafés on the Aventino have captured the last gasp fraternity. And, late Friday, the majority local bars – Café Braccia included – provide that pre-weekend table for a shared beer or two before heading home.
We’d stopped by the Café Braccia mid-morning for coffee after catching the train into town and walking up the Aventino from Piramide. We had a medical appointment close by for 11.30. There was seating for a dozen and half outside with no plant boxes colonizing the pavement, but with sufficient space for passers-by to skirt the end tables (including those on push bikes). Apart from one other couple the café was empty.
The café has a counter to the left as you enter; a ledge fixed to the wall opposite for those serious expresso drinkers (with no time available), and drinks cabinets. At the back is the cash register where the bar reaches round, there’s a door to a unisex-toilet and, presumably, a small kitchen out-back. The word ‘compact’ comes to mind.
‘Friendly’ too. The barista was stacking cups/saucers, he stopped, smiled and asked for our orders. Usual, of course, cappuccino, café latte (decaf), couple brioche. He provided an instant tour of his small glass-fronted brioche cabinet – there were neither mele nor mandorle; we opted for marmellata and cinque cereali. Coffees took couple minutes. We carried them to an outside table – warm, shaded and quiet for it was the week before Ferrogosta and traffic was light. We were seated within five minutes of arriving. There was a woman leaning on the horn of her car 50 m down the road; she’d been hemmed in by double parking and no one was listening.
Coffee was hot, frothy, tasty – usual high standards for your ‘local bar’ with a demanding clientele. There was no charge for sitting down – typical of many creeping tourist facilities/services – charging ‘normal’ stand-at-the-bar prices and of the order 2x plus for sitting down. Two of us - we paid €5 for our mid-morning breakfast.
Peter Steele
Infernetto
09 September 2018
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