Overview
Cafezal is a Milanese specialty micro-roastery and café founded by Italian-Brazilian Carlos Bitencourt, whose name borrows the Portuguese word for coffee plantation and whose original Via Solferino location placed an in-room 2.5-kilo roaster at the centre of a black-marble, dark-blue and satin-copper interior. Bitencourt has expanded to three Milan locations, including a Magenta site in a 1910s building and the Cafezal Coffee Hub east of the centre, with a fourth bar and bakery on the way.
Known for
- Milan specialty micro-roastery and café founded by Italian-Brazilian Carlos Bitencourt
- In-room 2.5-kilo roaster at the original Via Solferino location
- Three Milan locations including a Magenta site in a 1910s building and Cafezal Coffee Hub east of centre
- Cupping scores published on bag for most coffees
- Arabica-forward, light-roast positioning in a city where dark-roast espresso is the default
Why it matters
Italy is the spiritual home of espresso and one of the hardest specialty markets in Europe because every Italian already considers themselves a coffee expert, with most of the country still wedded to dark, blended, sometimes-Robusta espresso. Cafezal's success in Milan — multiple locations, expanding into bakery formats, integrated into the historic-building fabric of neighbourhoods like Magenta rather than imported as a foreign-coffee-shop pastiche — is one of the cleanest examples of how Italian specialty can grow without dismissing the espresso tradition.
Production
- head roaster
- Carlos Bitencourt
- roaster machine
- 2.5-kilo batch capacity drum (in-room at Via Solferino)
- roastery location
- Via Solferino 27, Milan
Café
Via Solferino, 27, 20121 Milan