Café Barbera combines a genuine Italian café experience offering a premium menu of unique and original Italian coffee drinks hand-crafted by professional Baristas, accompanied by a varied option of authentic italian dishes including pasta, pizzas
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"Café Barbera combines a genuine Italian café experience offering a premium menu of unique and original Italian coffee drinks hand-crafted by professional Baristas, accompanied by a varied option of authentic italian dishes including pasta, pizzas, salads and panini, delicious desserts, pastries & gelato."
The history of Caffè Barbera begins all the way back in 1870, when Domenico Barbera decided to settle in Southern Italy, and begin producing coffee with a small handcrafted roasting machine. His native Northern Italian industriousness and diligence, combined with the cheerfulness typical of his adopted South, soon lead to a thriving business. Domenico the coffee wizard, as he was known locally, watched his family and business grow together. His first roasting machine, called the Tornado, was capable of toasting 30 kilos of coffee at one time, and became his pride and joy. Unfortunately in 1903 Domenico Barbera the coffee wizard passed away unexpectedly from illness. Yet, he had enough time to hand down his art and passion to his children. The family business that proudly bears his name continues to live on today, and remains just as committed to producing high quality coffee, as the coffee wizard was all those years ago.
Antonio Barbera, Domenico’s son, took charge of the family business and continued to successfully grow it. A dedication to quality, a clever administration of family assets, and a careful management of the brand image transformed Caffè Barbera into one of the most popular coffee brands in Southern Italy during the interwar period. After suffering from the destruction caused by the war, the business was speedily rebuilt and soon re-emerged stronger than ever. In the Italian post-war economic boom the new goal became to bring Caffè Barbera’s tradition of excellence and success, to new rapidly growing markets all over the rest of Italy.
Antonio with the help of his son, Letterio Barbera, soon opened a new factory in Naples, the historical birthplace of Italian coffee culture. A great risk certainly, but also one that in the end, proved a great triumph. The new Neapolitan roastery became the foundation on which the family constructed a distribution network that stretched across the length of the Italian peninsula. Branches of the business were soon opened all the way in Milan. Caffè Barbera had now truly became an Italian coffee brand, that could be enjoyed everywhere, from the foot of Alps to the coasts of Sicily.
Under Antonio’s guidance the business had already transformed a small artisanal production into an industrial one. Yet it wasn’t until the arrival of Carmelo Barbera, that the production techniques of the business were again revolutionised by the application of modern scientific principles. After earning his master’s degree in Food Technology from Columbia University (NY), Carmelo with the support of the family business founded the first specialised chemical laboratory dedicated to the study of coffee in Italy. The business decided to place a new emphasis on research and development, and that would make all the difference. Perhaps Carmelo’s was a simple intuition, born of the times. Yet it was essential to the future growth of the business. Unsurprisingly the name Caffè Barbera, in collaboration with the international coffee community, began to appear in prestigious scientific publications and journals during this period.
