Orange Wine, Great Coffee, and Mountain Cheese: A Gourmand’s Guide to Trieste

Many cities in Italy battle for the title of “The least Italian city,” and Trieste has always been a finisher. But to be honest, Trieste competes in a different league: Maybe it’s “the most foreign city in Italy.” Once the sole port of the Habsburg Empire (and for years the Adriatic’s busiest harbor), its strategic border location turned it into a crossroads of cultures and religions. Trieste became the heart of cosmopolitan Italian life—or rather, Mitteleuropean culture—with Greek Orthodox and Serbian Orthodox churches, and an impressive synagogue standing as testaments to a past of Habsburg tolerance that allowed diverse communities to flourish.

Trieste is also an intellectual hotspot: In the early 1900s, Edoardo Weiss, a pupil of Freud, introduced the newborn psychoanalysis to the city and Italy while James Joyce, who made Trieste his home from 1905, wrote the first chapter of Ulysses here in 1915. Many authors and poets such as Umberto Saba and Italo Svevo filled cafés—so many that they could rival those in Paris—and carefully chose the perfect blend – Trieste is called Città del caffè and has its own lingo for the drink.

Trieste’s cuisine, meanwhile, is a delicious mix of Slovenian influences, Austrian pastry traditions, and both Italian Mediterranean and Balkan flavors. So at the end of February, with the Trieste Gulf cloaked in gray skies, rain and Bora – a popular wind that blows from the Karst to the coast – I headed into this “most foreign city in Italy” to sample its unique dishes and sip on the wines that have made Venezia Giulia—don’t call it Friuli—famous around the world. (Yes, I’m talking about those renowned orange and macerated wines).

Antico Caffè San Marco

Trieste, the capital of coffee and coffee houses—the ones adorned with tall Liberty-style stuccoes and golden brass lamps—finds its finest expression in the historic Caffè San Marco. Its timeworn atmosphere still echoes that of its 1914 opening, when some of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century spent hours seated at the same small marble tables. Beyond serving coffee, Caffè San Marco offers a menu that champions great ingredients. The dishes are prepared in-house, celebrating local tradition with a special nod to Balkan influences—for example, the jota, a soup crafted from capuzi garbi (the tangy little krauti), beans, and potatoes, enriched with ribs, rind, or other pork, cumin seeds, and bay leaves. Part of the café has even been set aside as a bookstore, furthering its intellectual legacy.

Via Cesare Battisti, 18, 34125 Trieste

Caffè Tommaseo

On the opposite side of the city, overlooking the port, Caffè Tommaseo stands as the oldest café in Trieste. Opened in 1830, it quickly became a hub for the Triestine irredentist movement, and in its 195 years it has welcomed the entire local and Italian intellectual scene. In contrast to Caffè San Marco, Tommaseo exudes an air of refined elegance, with its bistrot section perhaps evoking a touch of apprehension with white tablecloths and fine silverware. Yet the bar counter reassures with its warm, accessible vibe. A prominent sign on the wall offers a guide to the distinctive coffee vocabulary of Trieste: an espresso becomes “nero”; a macchiato, “capo”; a cappuccino is known as “caffelatte”; and even the cup has its own name: in Trieste, it’s often served in a small glass known as a “B”. (A macchiato in glass cup is called “capo in B”). All the blends are made from arabica beans, and instead of a glass of water, a shot of hot chocolate accompanies the coffee—all for just 1€.

Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo, 4, 34122 Trieste

Buffet da Pepi

Meat of every kind, cren, sauerkraut, mustard, sandwiches, and more meat: stepping into Buffet da Pepi is like diving straight into the convivial heart of the city. Here you discover that Trieste is a town where workers share the table with nobles and intellectuals alike. The buffet tradition is a relic of Austro-Hungarian customs, harking back to the days of the free port when locals welcomed dockworkers at all hours for a “rebechin” (a second helping, a chance to eat even more) of a hearty yet cheap meal. At Pepi, you truly experience the warm, sunny soul of Trieste. At its tables, tourists might be found, but it’s the local people —enjoying a boiled meat dish or a quick pork sandwich with mustard and cren during their lunch break—who embody its spirit. The specialty is “la caldaia” — a mixed boil with sausages meant for sharing—, accompanied by cotechino, zampone, brined tongue, Vienna and Cragno sausages, and the legendary “porcina” (a spiced pork shoulder). Pepi is the buffet, and buffets are Trieste—missing it is simply not an option.

Via della Cassa di Risparmio, 3, 34121 Trieste TS

SET – Sapori Eccellenti del Territorio

At SET, a small deli on Via Cavana, local products from Carnia arrive straight from the producers twice a week. Erwin, the owner, makes the rounds among the small mountain-artisans producing cheeses, cured meats, wines, oil, and flours, purchasing directly from them to offer in his store. The cured meats come from free-range pigs, while the cheeses range from mountain varieties to the typical formadi frant—a blend of crumbled cheeses that lends it its name—crafted in a dairy style, with varying ages and enriched with salt, pepper, cream, and milk. (Erwin even adds a pinch of pear mustard— delightful.) The obvious recommendation is to enjoy a generous mixed board with a generous portion of formadi frant, paired with a bottle of malvazija Istarska.

Via di Cavana, 13a, 34124 Trieste TS

La Bottiglia Volante

One of Trieste’s charms is that you’re never more than ten meters away from a wine bar. The region is celebrated worldwide for its robust red wines and aromatic, savory whites, and grippy, complex oranges with the city itself serving as a showcase. La Bottiglia Volante is a small, welcoming wine bar right in the city center, its walls adorned with a collection of mostly natural wines from around the globe and the local area. For those who appreciate the macerated wines and the oranges of Radikon and the like, this is paradise. The advice here is simple: let the staff guide you in discovering both renowned and lesser-known local wineries, but above all drink the grape variety vitovska.

Via Nicolò Paganini, 2/c, 34122 Trieste TS

Enoteca Nanut

Cross Piazza Sant’Antonio and you’ll encounter another little gem. Nanut is as inviting and dim as a rustic country cellar, stocked like a wine shop in a big city. By the glass, you’ll find several names of wineries that would thrill any modern natural wine bar—Skerk, Batič, Zidarich, Radikon—and I took a glass of Skerk Ograde from 2022, a blend of vitovska, malvasia, sauvignon and pinot grigio macerated on the skins for 15 days. If I were to go again, I’d have a whole bottle and enjoy it at the bar with the locals.

Via Genova, 10/E, 34122 Trieste 

Continentale

This hotel is nestled in the historic Teresian Quarter, housed in a historic building dating back to the late 1800s. In 2023, Hotel Continentale opened its doors once again after a major makeover led by Guido Guidi and The Begin Hotel. Inside, stunning spaces effortlessly blend art deco stuccoes with sleek contemporary design, capturing the city’s broader vibe. There’s a restaurant and buzzy bar where locals kick off their mornings with a “nero” or a “capo in B” (Triestini really live their city). Room rates can be under 200 euros, but if you’re looking for something even more budget-friendly, just around the corner in Corso Italia, Modernist is a good bet.

Via S. Nicolò, 25, 34121 Trieste

Lorenzo Villa is a writer and editor based in Milan. He writes about lifestyle for Harper’s Bazaar Italia and collaborates with the literary magazine Galápagos. All photos by Lorenzo Villa. Read more of Lorenzo’s writing on Something Curated here.

Header image by Helena Jankovičová Kováčová on Pexels.com