Best coffee in Verona, Italy

It is a beautiful morning in the city of Verona.

The city is waking up and people are beginning to fill the streets. Most people are going to their favourite cafe to get their shot of coffee.
In Italy “a coffee” usually means a dark roasted espresso, enjoyed quick at the bar.

However, in recent years, specialty coffee has been getting a small foothold in some of the bigger cities.
When I first came to Verona I did not expect to find coffee that I would enjoy. But lucky for me google gave one hit when searching for “Specialty coffee Verona”

Right next to the famous Castelvecchio, the medieval fortress, inside an arching doorway you’ll find Garage coffee bros.
From the outside it doesn’t look like anything special, but as soon as you walk in the door you heard the sound of a grinder and get hit in the nose by the distinct aroma of a Kenyan coffee.
“YES!” I thought to myself. “Finally, some great coffee!”

Garage coffee is the first specialty shop in Verona and opened during the summer of 2022. But the owners, Davide and Andrea Cobelli has a long history in coffee. They grew up watching their dad make coffee at home and fell in love with it, and in 2020 Davide won the Italian roasting championship.

The locale is very small with only two tables and 4 stools, but that makes it very intimate and easy to talk to the barista.

Behind the bar I met Ricardo. An experienced Barista and coffee geek and we started talking about the coffee culture in Italy and how specialty is finally starting to find its place here.
Most Italians are very traditional when it comes to their coffee and does not want to try new things or new ways of doing it.
Ideally the espresso should cost 1 euro, be dark with thick crema and be made on a dirty machine because the old coffee apparently preserves flavour.

But garage is trying to stand out a bit, both in the quality of the coffee and the fact that they actually clean their machine after each shot. So of course I had to order an espresso, and I wanted to try a filter coffee so I also got a v60.

The coffees were a bit darker than what I am used to from Norway, but the flavours were really nice and smooth.

The espresso was a blend of Brazil and Ethiopia with notes of dark chocolate, but with a hint of red plum and cherries.

And the v60 was a Kenyan coffee from the Ibutiti cooperative in Muranga. Not as juicy as I prefer Kenyans to be, but very nicely balanced with lots of fruity notes like red currants and raspberry.

While talking to the Ricardo about how difficult it can be to get people to try specialty coffee, he told me that there was a new shop that just opened a few hundred meters away. He was going there for a coffee after work and asked if I wanted to join. So of course I said yes!

Ammazza Café opened their doors in October 2022 and walking in I got the feeling that this was a very chill and relaxed place.
It was a big open space with some people just hanging around talking, and no-one was in a rush.
I was greeted by one of the owners, Michelangelo, and we instantly started chatting about coffee.

Turned out he had been introduced to specialty coffee while living in Denmark, and got hooked while studying to become an engineer.

Like so many other people in coffee he fell into it randomly and just got hooked. So when moving back to Italy, him and his friend and partner Jacobo, who had been introduced to specialty while living in Bath in England decided to open their own shop to try to introduce the people of Verona to something new.

In Ammazza they want to try to show the Italians that coffee can be so much more than what most people think it is.

They rotate roasters several times a month, and try to have 3 different filter coffees and 3 different espressos available. And since they are closed only one day a week you can in theory get a new coffee every day of the week.

They import coffee from all around Europe, and at the moment they have coffee from Tim Wendelboe in Norway, Pelican coffee in Italy and Nomad coffee in Spain.

The name Ammazza caffè means “a small glass of liqueur usually consumed after coffee to dull its taste or the caffeine effect.”

So as you might guess they also serve coffee cocktails and other drinks here along with some simple food items.

Unlike most coffee places in Italy they have free wifi and encourage people to come there and work during the day while enjoying a good coffee or a sandwich.

So far it is the only place I have found in Italy where I can sit and work and also smell and drink delicious coffee while doing so.

Both of these places are a must to check out if you ever spend some time in Verona.

In my opinion, Garage coffee has the best milk drinks you’ll find in Verona. So if you want a cappuccino or flat white in the morning, this is the place to go. They also serve very good pourers and has a really nice cold brew in the fridge if you ask for it.

At ammazza cafe I would recommend asking what they have, because every week you will get a different answer.