A City Abuzz

In underappreciated Trieste, Taras Grescoe finds some of Italy's most storied-and spectacular-coffee shops.

- Taras Grescoe

I THOUGHT I KNEW everything there was to know about Italian coffee. I'm a three-cup-a-day man, and my standby is a single shot with a bit of foamed milk: a classic macchiato. When in Rome, I frequent Caffè Sant'Eustachio, where the baristas make a gossamer crema, masking their technique behind a hulking Cimbali machine.

In Naples, I make sure to ask for my espresso without sugar: southerners prefer robusta beans, which are dark and high in caffeine, so they tend to compensate by sweetening their coffee.

I've even made the pilgrimage to Turin, where Italy's first espresso was served at an industrial fair in 1884, to visit its slick interactive coffee museum and try a drink called bicerin, a mix of coffee and hot chocolate topped with a chilled crema al latte.

But on my first visit to Trieste, the small city tucked away in the northeastern corner of Italy that many consider the true capital of coffee, I was at a loss. At the Antico Caffè San Marco, my first stop after getting off the slow train from Venice, the closest thing to a macchiato was a goccia, an espresso topped with a drop of milk foam.

If you want a standard espresso, order a nero—which in other parts of Italy will get you a glass of red wine. Most people ask for a capo in b, which a server told me is like a cappuccino, but with less milk, and served in a bicchiere, or glass, rather than a cup. Mine arrived on a silver tray, along with a small glass of mineral water, the way it might at a Kaffeehaus in Austria.

Indeed, with its intricate woodwork, Comedy and Tragedy masks, and patrons quietly examining the day's broadsheets, the café felt more like one in Belle Époque Vienna than modern-day Italy.