The Italian bar. It is a ubiquitous institution in the Boot. Part coffee shop, part watering hole, part restaurant, part gelateria, part convenience store: this is one-stop shopping, Italian style; a kind of conglomeration that is perhaps one of this country’s few efficiencies. This place might be the closest thing to Italian fast food. (I am purposely ignoring those golden arches that assault one exiting his train at Santa Maria Novella.) Yet, the Italian bar is, in reality, a bastion of a kind of ‘slow food.’
Any frenzy here is of a different sort. On entering, taking in the heavy smell of coffee and tobacco, one gets the sense that he should slow down just a bit to enjoy his coffee and his morning. Or perhaps the coffee is so eminently enjoyable that it demands a minute unto itself. There’s no rushing off with latte in hand, no drive through window. If any paper cups exist, they’re gathering dust some place and the management doesn’t know where that place is. Real porcelain cups reign supreme, complete with saucer and spoon.
So, take five and be an Italian. Order your cappuccino at the bar to avoid paying three times as much for table service. Only hipsters in Seattle have “grande” and “venti.” Here, there’s only one size: a perfect proportion of espresso and milk, probably not enough to qualify for a “kiddie size” stateside. If you’re really pressed for time, drink at the bar, otherwise grab an open table, and maybe a pastry, and linger for a while. The whole town is here: grandma, an old man reaching for a smoke, young maidens with the latest gossip, the parish priest, even the garbage men stop in for a caffe. Strike up a conversation with any one of these characters or just take it all in by yourself.
The scene is admittedly noisy, but in an exhilarating sense. Patrons shout coffee orders over already loud conversations taking place at a break neck pace (apart from driving, it seems that talking is the only thing done with any rapidity in this country). There is the constant clatter of cups and saucers and the hiss of the espresso machine. Attendants behind the bar, often clad in funny little hats, engage in a dizzying dance: taking orders, setting out saucers and spoons to be crowned with cappuccini, clearing away empty cups. The cycle repeats throughout the morning. Half of the fun lies in watching this little show. A certain order and civility emerges from this seemingly chaotic scene, a civility marked by the ability to stop for a moment and say hello to the guy making your coffee or catch up with a friend standing next to you. The bar is a neighborhood establishment; no chains or franchises here. The whole ordeal is very personal. In taking his coffee in the morning, one is actually forced to interact with those with whom he shares his daily existence. Heaven forbid!
This is real community, not in some contrived, politically correct platitudinous sense. Rather it is real people engaging each other, appreciating each other’s being in a kind of local context that is mindful of the human need for place. The Italian bar, then, represents a few moments of sanity in the craze of modern life. It remains a fixture of a more conscientious, slower life in a modern world that is all but devoid of such a thing.
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