I imagine an ocean liner in the golden days of ocean travel-as elegant as it was imposing as it sailed the great seas, carrying travelers between continents. Above deck, fine restaurants adorned with delicate crystal and polished silverware. Below, the men who powered this modern mechanical prodigy, ever hungry for fuel as her roaring furnaces devoured mountains of coal. Scraping shovels, hissing steam and backbreaking work; it was a grueling task to keep these floating cities moving.
Meanwhile, on land, about a century later, a boot-shaped peninsula that similarly cleaves the Mediterranean is kept afloat by a different sort of engine room.
Even the smallest of towns has at least one; larger cities can even boast several iconic examples that have sustained the daily lives of their inhabitants for generations. In these machine rooms, one hears not shovels scraping, but teaspoons clinking on cups as mechanical prodigies–also powered by steam–pour a unique elixir that helps every Italian face another Monday morning, another meeting, another summer afternoon when the air is still and not even stray cats have the energy to sip water from the nearest fountain. The elixir, of course, is espresso, and Italy’s engine room is simply known as “the bar.”
In Rome, a few steps from the Pantheon, there is a world-famous “bar” named after the church that stands in front of it: a bar that, for more than eighty years, has punctuated the daily lives of Romans — from workers to politicians — giving them that shot-glass-sized dose of encouragement they need to keep going. At Bar Sant’Eustachio, everything works like a well-oiled mechanism, from the selection of the best Brazilian coffees throughout the production chain to the moment when a steaming shot of espresso grazes the lips of its last customer.
At any hour of the day, the place is swarming with customers; waiters dart about carrying precariously balanced cups of coffee and pastries on stainless steel trays (I have yet to find a bar in Italy worthy of the name that doesn’t serve its customers with these steel trays–there’s something about them that tastes like “home”). Behind the counter, the bartenders — master craftsmen in their own right — silently communicate with a nod here, a glance there. Meanwhile, their arms move in a continuous, coordinated flow, almost like a dance, from the coffee machine to the tray, from the tray to the coffee machine … and the espresso flows uninterruptedly.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Sant’Eustachio and photograph this choreographed spectacle as it unfolded before my eyes. Although everything was happening at a speed that would test the skills of even the most experienced photographer, I hope that these images can in their own way be a tribute to the magic that is repeated every day in the countless engine rooms of Italy: The Bar.
The article Italy’s Engine Room comes from TheNewyorker.
