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The Cafés of Trieste
The first Coffee shops were opened in
Trieste during the second half of the eighteenth century,
probably following the example of many fashionable places in
Venice, but they immediately took on an unmistakable Viennese
connotation in their interior decorations and in the
services they offered; in 1768 in contrada Bottari (now via
San Nicolò), Benedetto Capano was granted the exclusive sale
of “hot and cold waters, tea, coffee, chocolate, lemonades,
sherbets and syrup water”. From then on the Coffee Shops
multiplied in number in Trieste which had in the meantime
become a Middle European emporium; as
time went by, the cosmopolitan spirit of the city proposed
very differing characteristics, with distinctly political
Cafés, Cafés for Austrian officers and top executives, the
bourgeoisie Cafés, the businessmen’s Cafés, and increasingly
numerous were the literary Cafés, where James Joyce, Italo
Svevo, Umberto Saba used to go.
Nowadays, around the coffee tables of the most historical
Cafés, we find students studying, elderly ladies sipping
their coffee, university students writing their lecture
notes and obviously tourists who are immediately bewitched
by the slow and relaxed rhythm surrounding them.
In an ideal itinerary we will walk past the Cafés called
Tommaseo, Caffè
degli Specchi, Tergesteo, Stella
Polare, Torinese,
’Urbanis, Pirona and
the Ancient
Caffè San Marco. These Cafés are
all able to evoke more than one century of the city’s
history through events that tell us about culture,
invasions, literature and freedom , but that at the same
time are perfectly set within the framework of the XXI
century and just like one hundred years ago they are well
tuned in to their clients’ needs and wishes.
Located in what was once called piazza
dei Negozianti (the Shopkeepers’ Square), the Caffè
Tommaseo was founded in 1830 by Tommaso Marcato
coming from Padua. The Café immediately became a privileged
meeting place for artists, businessmen and politicians; in
1848 it was renamed in honour of the writer and patriot from
Dalmatia, Tommaseo.
Famous for having introduced at the beginning of the
century, the novelty of ice-cream, the Café Tommaseo is a
bright, sophisticated and elegant place: the mirrors, which
were brought directly from Belgium about one hundred years
ago, the chairs made in bent wood and the decorations, which
are the work of the painter from Trieste Giuseppe Gatteri,
all stand out distinctively.
www.caffetommaseo.com
The Caffè degli Specchi, was opened in
1839, founded and managed by the Grecian Nicolò Priovolo.
The Café was first on the ground floor of Palazzo Stratti,
in that same Piazza Grande (which became Piazza dell'Unità
d'Italia in 1918) that continues to represent the heart of
the city. Thanks to this special position, the Caffè degli
Specchi immediately became a privileged place where to
follow all the historical, political, economic and cultural
happenings of the city of Trieste.
Over the years the Caffè degli Specchi was managed by many
different owners and it underwent great changes: in the
period following the Second World War, for instance, the
Café was requisitioned by the Anglo-American allied forces,
and it was then that the Royal Navy emblems were placed
inside.
www.caffespecchi.it
Founded in 1863, the Caffè Tergesteo was
for many years located in front of the historical theatre
Teatro Verdi, with its characteristic outdoor coffee
tables.
Today it is situated inside the gallery bearing the same
name, which leads from Piazza Verdi to Piazza della Borsa,
and it has preserved its characteristic of being a place for
meetings and encounters, and it is here that businessmen
from the nearby Stock Exchange meet during the daytime and
the cultural elite in Trieste in the evening . The history
of the city is represented on the coloured window panes and
Umberto Saba dedicated a lyric in his Canzoniere to this
Café.
The Caffè Stella Polare is situated in the
heart of the Teresiano borough, next to the Serbian Orthodox
Church of San Spiridione and very close to Piazza della
Repubblica and Piazza Sant’Antonio.
It started as a typical Austrian-Hungarian Café, with the
classical decorations of stuccoes and mirrors which are
still partly present and for years the place was a refuge
for shopkeepers and intellectuals coming from Trieste and
abroad; with the end of the Second World War and the arrival
in the city of the Anglo-Americans, this Café became a
famous ballroom: from here many young women from Trieste
sailed for the United States, happy wives of young American
soldiers.
The Bar Torinese is situated in Corso
Italia and dates back to 1919; the furniture is the work of
the ebony craftsman from Trieste Debelli, and it reminds you
of the interiors of a transatlantic ship.
The small and cosy Bar ex Urbanis came to
life from the ashes of a pastry shop in the first half of
the nineteenth century and it is made precious by a mosaic
floor which bears the date of its foundation:1832.
Opened in 1914, the Caffè San Marco immediately
became a meeting place for newspaper readers and a
laboratory for the production of fake passports, which were
allegedly needed by anti-Austrian patriots to flee from
Italy.
It was completely destroyed by the Austrians during the war,
but rebuilt to become, in the twenties, a meeting place for
many intellectuals from Trieste, among whom Saba and Svevo.
The interior proposes the typical atmosphere of the Viennese
Cafés: the engraved wooden counter, the nudes painted on the
medallions on the walls, the obsessive repetition of coffee
leaves on the decorations, the marble tables with their cast
iron legs, the mirrors and the original frescoes.
The most regular patron of the Caffé Pasticceria
Pirona was James Joyce, who actually devised his
“Ulysses” masterpiece here, while tasting an Austrian pastry
and sipping a glass of high quality vintage wine; in this
famous pastry shop the visitor can taste sophisticated cakes
and specialties from Trieste, and the original furnishing of
the time has been preserved.
Courtesy of
Turismo Friuli Venezia Giulia
(c) 1997-2008 E. Massetti
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