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Formerly Cafe Niebaum-Coppola until the winery venture of the same name went all private, this upscale café with Hollywood credentials is named after Coppola's production company - American Zoetrope. Beneath the picturesque green, patinaed Zoetrope building, it sits on a angular street corner approaching downtown. Stylish interior with Coppola movie posters, copper bar, and painted tile floors. Many white tableclothed sidewalk tables around its long street corner. Their manual espresso machine is a fabulous, decorative, antique, yet high-powered Bosco from Naples - a gift from Illy presented to Francis Ford Coppola. As in the finer Roman cafés, its barista (and also bartender) is an older gentleman who respects its power and adds a colorful personality to the experience of sipping at the bar. But they could use a little tuning in their machine and/or grind, as it produces a ring or a thin veneer of pale crema (that can sometimes run bubbly when there is a real crema). Typical "woody" Illy flavor: there's some body to the cup (the pour size is modest enough) but it otherwise comes off as a weak shot with a narrow flavor profile in the tobacco smoke and pepper end. They used to serve it in designer Illy cups and painted saucers, but they have since produced their own logo cups from Porcelana Schmidt.
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