Artefact

Artefact sits on Via Janari in the historic centre of Frascati, a hill town in the Castelli Romani half an hour outside Rome, and it is the only entry in this guide where the coffee shares the room with restored twentieth-century bakery machinery. Founder Omar Cirulli's family spent decades maintaining and restoring bakery equipment, and rather than watch the machines go for scrap he kept them, restored them and built a coffee bar around them. What a visitor walks into is restored historic machinery, original tools and industrial objects arranged as a room you sit in, not a museum you file past.

Espresso is pulled on a fully restored 1960s Faema E61, rebuilt in-house, with Eureka Drogheria MCD4 grinders alongside. The house espresso comes from Coffeeriff, an Italian specialty roaster. A La Pavoni Cellini and a La Pavoni Europiccola cover the bar while the E61 is apart for maintenance, and a vintage drum roaster is currently under restoration as part of the collection.

Filter is available through the day depending on demand, on a menu that changes regularly and reaches well outside Italy. The V60 at the time of writing is from MAXCAFÉ in Medellín, Colombia, one of several roasters here whose coffee is not sold on the European market. Bags of beans are available to take home when they are in stock.

Espresso is 1.50 euros, a double 3.00, and a V60 starts at 6.00 depending on the coffee. Seating is indoors, quiet and intimate, with free wifi and no objection to anyone settling in to work. Artefact is closed Saturday and Sunday year round apart from occasional special events announced in advance, so the trip out to the Castelli is a weekday trip.

"Growing up surrounded by bakery machinery through my family's profession, I realised that an important part of Italy's industrial heritage was slowly disappearing. I founded Artefact to preserve these machines, share their stories and show that industrial heritage can continue to live through everyday experiences." Omar Cirulli, founder. Artefact opened in 2023.