Caffe Florian and The Story of The Most Expensive Coffee in the World
Continuing with the Venice theme, now I’d like to turn the subject over to coffee.
Firstly let me start by m my experiences of coffee in Italy as a whole. On average I found the quality of espresso to be of a higher standard in the UK, but nothing blew me away. That said, we didn’t go out of our way to find well renowned cafes, or visit known hot spots for quality shots. The best espresso I had on the whole trip was in Modena in a large cafe in the central square, the girl who made it clearly understood what she was doing and even though the blend contained the usual 10-20% robusta, which the Italians seem to love so much, the extraction was good and it was well received.
Now, back to Venice and Caffe Florian. Caffe Florian is easily the most famous cafe in Venice and well renowned throughout the world. It’s situated in Piazza San Marco and therefor the bussiest part of Venice full stop. Most visitors to Venice will read that a coffee at Caffe Florian is a top 10 must do during your stay, so we thought we might as well give it a go.
The square is so busy and pigeon ridden during the day that we decided to drop by after dinner one night for a more peaceful experience, and it also gave us the opportunity to listen to the live classical music which is played every evening at the cafe.
Now dear reader, I ask you - what would you class as an expensive coffee? £3 for a single espresso? Agreed, quite a lot, but it does happen, especially in swanky restaurants in London.
At Caffe Florian you will be charged €6 - Now that’s an expensive shot of coffee.
Oh and if you want some poorly textured milk on top of that (AKA cappuccino) then it’ll be €8.50.
Still, we thought… It’ll be an experience and we wont go back there again.
Our coffees were delivered along with the bill and as I took a sip of my espresso I almost spat it back out. As I unfolded the bill I was horrified to see the picture below. Rest assured we hung around for an hour or so enjoying the music whilst I contemplated stealing the cup - and no, the coffee wasn’t anything special!
Supplemento Musi means ‘Service Charge’.
We had a similar experience at a cafe in Milan near il Duomo. Around E26 for 3 drinks, and they were not that great. Venice is clearly worse though. Did you try a $13 can of Coca Cola? I hate Venice.