This strawberry custard tart is perhaps best known by Italians as one of the many tiny cakes to enjoy with coffee, but there’s nothing to stop you enjoying them on a larger scale …
The bar in Linari must be 12m long, at least, and it’s shaped like an “L” or an allen key. The shorter section is opposite the espresso machine, and a good place to stand, or lean, with one eye on both doors and the cash desk, and the other on the silver machine with its crown of warm cups. I’m not sure which movement I prefer: the bash to get the used-up coffee grounds out of the filter basket, or the twist to put the newly filled portafilter back in place. Certainly watching a barista make an espresso is not something I ever get bored with; the opposite, in fact: the dark grounds deposited into the basket and pressed firm, the twist, then the hiss of pressure that forces the right measure of water through the compressed grounds and the dark stream into a small cup.
Sometimes sugar, sometimes not. If I do, I stir 15 times clockwise, because, years ago, I overheard a conversation between two people I liked the look of and I copied them. The other thing about stirring is that it is mildly hypnotic: a seven-second meditation with a cup in the company of others, but all alone. The bar has a glass top, so if you haven’t paid for a pastry, you might feel regret looking down on the well-lit, quite well-laminated cornetti, raisin whirls and armband-sized, ring doughnut-like ciambelle.