Coffee in Italy: the counter, the table, morning cappuccino and caffè sospeso

In Italy coffee is usually drunk fast, standing at the counter, and the customs around it are few: the counter is cheaper than the table, cappuccino belongs to the morning, and after a meal it is an espresso. None of it is law. They are habits the bar keeps up day after day, and anyone who knows them fits in within the first minute.

'Un caffè' means espresso

Ask for 'un caffè' in an Italian bar and a small cup arrives, thick, dark and topped with golden foam. That is an espresso, and nobody uses a separate word for it. The machine itself is from Turin: Angelo Moriondo patented a steam bar machine in 1884, Luigi Bezzera added the single serving in 1901, and Achille Gaggia patented a piston mechanism in 1938 and refined it in 1947, which is when crema arrived. At home it is made in the moka pot, the stovetop pot Alfonso Bialetti began selling in 1933 as the Moka Express, and which has barely changed since.

Cappuccino, the morning and the macchiato

Cappuccino is a morning drink, taken with breakfast and a cornetto; it takes its name from the brown of the Capuchin friars' habits. Custom says it is drunk until about eleven, and rarely after a meal, because milk is thought too heavy for the end of a meal. This is not a ban, only a sign of ordering like a visitor; locals order differently after a meal. After lunch the order is an espresso or a macchiato, an espresso stained with a drop of milk foam, and for something stronger a caffè corretto, an espresso with grappa or sambuca.

Counter or table

A bar charges two prices, one at the counter (al banco) and one at a table (al tavolo), and the table typically costs roughly double. The logic is simple: the table is paid for in service and a view, the counter in coffee alone. In a Florence bar an espresso at the counter costs €1–1.50, so breakfast there is often eaten standing up. In tourist areas you pay at the till first and hand the receipt (scontrino) to the barista; in smaller towns and many southern bars payment often comes on the way out, and which applies in a given place shows in what the people ahead are doing.

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Naples is where coffee is talked about loudest. Caffè Gambrinus, on Via Chiaia, opened in 1860, and its Art Nouveau interior came out of a refit in 1889–1890 designed by the architect Antonio Curri; the guests included Oscar Wilde, D'Annunzio, Hemingway and Sartre. The caffè sospeso comes from the working-class cafés of the same city: a customer pays for two coffees, drinks one and leaves the other. Whoever comes in later and asks whether there is one waiting gets it without paying. The custom is rarer than it once was and is now mostly tied to Christmas time.

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