Turin, Italy
Café al Bicerin opened its doors in 1763. It is in the historical centre of the city of Turin and over the years, it has attracted the likes of Puccini, Hemingway, Nietzsche, Alexander Dumas and any number of Italian kings. But most remarkably, it is still very much what it was at the very start, a modest and pretty little café on a square, opposite a church. What is even more unusual about Café Al Bicerin is that it has been run by women from its foundation, when most of the great coffee houses of Europe were run for, and by, men.
You need to look twice to spot it. What you see is a pretty façade, a front door and a shop window. On the opposite side of the piazza stands the church
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Consolation of the Afflicted, known as ‘ la Consolata.’ A church has stood on this spot since the Fifth century. La Consolata is a grand basilica and it makes Café Al Bicerin look even smaller.
Yet Café and Church go hand in hand. And they have done so ever since the ecclesiastical authorities in Turin decided that the speciality coffee that gives this café its name, the dark and creamy bicerin, was not really a food, but a snack. This was good news for those who were fasting before taking holy communion at morning mass. They would pop into the Café Bicerin for a guilt-free shot of their favourite tipple. The sceptical narrator in Umberto Eco’s novel , The Prague Cemetery, calls this hypocrisy. But I’d say it’s mutual complicity and it has its uses on both sides of the piazza. The Sanctuary of the Virgin consoles its congregation, while the Café Al Bicerin comforts its customers. Happily, these often turn out to be the same people.
In summer, lines of tourists wait outside the door of the café. But many seem to prefer sitting at a table under an umbrella, in the sunny piazza, taking in La Consolata, across the way. The tables outdoors help to extend the working area of Café Bicerin. But if you want the feeling of the real thing , you must be inside . And happily, the more of those sitting out of doors, the better your chances of finding a table in the cool interior .
After the sunny piazza, the interior seems almost sombre. The room is a blend of dark wood panelling, small white marble tables, cast-iron columns and mirrors. On the shelves behind the counter, gleaming glass confectionery jars loaded with sweets and biscuits line up in the lamplight. Café Al Bicerin has been smartened over the past centuries, but it is still one rather small room, quietly busy and gently contained
It is also a café/bar, and so you may drop in for breakfast or a light lunch , or for coffee, which is served in all its many forms. But the café’s speciality takes centre stage. It has been that way since ‘the bicerin’ was first invented , some think in 1704. No-one knows the precise formula used for this triple-layered speciality, served not in a cup but in a small clear glass with no handle, on a saucer beside a carefully placed teaspoon.
The drink is popular across Turin but all bicerins are not remotely equal. The ingredients are simple: a shot of expresso (the café roasts its own) and a layer of melted homemade chocolate, topped with a layer of fresh, but not whipped, cream. It’s a three-tier drink to be sipped and spooned. Only the careless might confuse it with cappuccino which looks overblown and rather blowsy beside a small, dark, potent bicerin.
I was there early on a Monday morning, not long ago. I sat at a table in the corner. Opposite me, an angular woman was finishing her bicerin. Looking for all the world like one of those mechanical toy birds, endlessly dipping its long beak into a glass of water, that fascinated me as a child, she lowered her head to the little glass and sipped the cream.
In another corner sat four men at round table, glancing at each other, nodding, shrugging, fiddling with their teaspoons, nervously tapping their bicerin glasses. No-one spoke. But each of them knew what the others had in mind. Whatever it was, they were in it together, in a kind of telepathic complicity. Cafés are where private business is done in public spaces.
The writer, George Steiner, knew about the visions a good café may bring on. They are, he wrote, natural places ‘ for assignation and conspiracy...debate and gossip, for the flâneur and the poet . A cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a tea with rum secures a locale in which to work, to dream, to play chess or simply keep warm the whole day.’
When I left the Café al Bicerin, I crossed the piazza to the basilica of the Virgin of Consolation. A woman was waiting discreetly in the entrance to the church. At first, I took her for the janitor or sacristan. It was only when she approached me with a sideways smile and an outstretched hand that I realised that she was the resident mendicant. She encouraged charitable visitors to open their hearts and their purses.
In 18th century England, some owners of large country houses employed ornamental hermits, who dressed and looked the part, to add ecclesiastical charm to their estates. There was something of that about the beggar in the basilica, in her simple dress and shawl. And her shy smile as she took the note, I gave her was perfectly judged. I’d like to think she dropped into Café Al Bicerin for coffee, when her shift in the church porch was over. After all, it takes two to tango.