Bar Farnese

Bar Farnese is a family-run café that has resisted every wave of modernisation, so stepping through the door feels like travelling back to an older Rome. The decor is old-fashioned in a pleasing way, the waiters are dressed in classic vests and move about the room, and service comes across as gruff yet kind. Newer café trends are absent, with neither latte art nor avocado toast on offer. It ranks among the last real latterie in the city, places where customers stand at a zinc counter over a very good espresso.

People who live in Rome keep it simple at Bar Farnese: order an espresso and drink it on your feet at the bar’s zinc top, the way Romans take their coffee. While you drink, watch the vest-wearing waiters as they handle the room, brusque in manner yet kind. That scene, playing out among old-fashioned furnishings in a café whose family has refused to modernise, is a large part of the experience.