Antonio Bilotta sips a cappuccino while sitting inside an ornate pink and blue room filled with wooden crates, cardboard boxes, and coffee testing equipment. Three of his friends — all of whom have been Bilotta’s clients for many years — mingle by the bar while also drinking various espresso beverages.
On the window of this pop-up location is the name of Bilotta’s seventh and latest concept, Bar Oro Caffé & Roastery, a coffee bar which will open later this month at its permanent location in Energy Square, on Jasper Avenue.
“The idea there, basically, is it’s a coffee roaster, but we’re roasting coffee on-premises,” he says. “It’s all in glass — to be able to see the whole process.” The location will include a coffee bar, ample seating and, eventually, a patio bathed in light reflected off of Energy Square’s’ gold-tinted glass. In Italian, the “Oro” in Bar Oro means “gold.”
At Bar Oro, the centre of attention will be the roaster, a German-made monster that can take 12 kilograms of coffee beans. It arrived via Chicago, and it’s the final piece of the puzzle in the Bar Oro operation. Once it arrives, it’s “go time.” This means that Bilotta’s coffee-roasting mentor, Marco Cremonese, will make his first ever trip to Canada to help Bilotta set up his roaster and get everything “dialed in.”
Cremonese is an Italian master roaster and Q grader accredited by the Specialty Coffee Association, an international organization representing thousands of coffee professionals. He’s a professional consultant who has trained roasters for what Bilotta refers to as “the big boys” in Italian coffee, like Segafredo Zanetti and Lavazza. He also only takes on students and clients who can speak Italian, in which Bilotta is fluent, and last year, he had the chance to spend a two-week intensive course with Cremonese, getting hands-on experience in the art of roasting coffee beans in Florence, Italy.
“To really become a good roaster, you need to spend time at it. You’ll always figure it out with time, but sometimes you don’t want to make mistakes,” Bilotta says.
Bilotta has over 20 years of experience as a barista, cafe operator and consultant, and has been to Italy over 20 times. He first wanted to bring the idea of an Italian coffee experience to Edmonton after his time living in Rome in 1997, where he fell in love with its social and intimate coffee culture. Since then, he has learned everything he can about coffee, from coffee trade shows in Boston to visiting coffee farmers in Colombia and a trip where he tried espresso from every region of Italy.
He first wanted to start roasting coffee at his Da Capo Caffe but hadn’t put in the research to understand what he needed to make it work. His second endeavour in roasting was at his Al Centro cafe, which also fell through due to difficulties in ventilation.
In 2020, challenges presented by the pandemic and years of continued issues with his Al Centro location forced Bilotta to shutter its doors and sell Da Capo (luckily, to a neighbour in the Roots on Whyte community building).
“It was a kick in the balls, it was my sixth concept and my last one, my most grand, and it failed,” Bilotta says. “The problem was I was so beat up trying to get Al Centro open that, by the time it opened, I was truly burned out — I didn’t even realize it.”
But then, in 2022, after some time away from the sector, Bilotta received a “golden opportunity” from an old client from Bilotta’s first concept, Leva, who is part of the group that owns Energy Square. And now, the lobby, which has sat empty for 20 years, is proving to be a perfect location for roasting coffee — and for Bilotta’s friends and clients to get that intimate coffee experience he is always chasing.
Bar Oro Caffé & Roastery
Downtown | 10047 108 St NW, Edmonton | @bar.oro.roastery
This article appears in the Sept/Oct 2023 issue of Edify
