Asmara's Macchiato Culture, Highland Food and the Massawa Railway

Coffee in Asmara is lived in two distinct velocities. In the morning and late afternoon, residents step up to the polished marble counters of 1930s and 1950s bars for a fast, velvety macchiato pulled from a lever-operated Italian espresso machine; after lunch or in the afternoon courtyard, time slows to a standstill for the three-round highland Eritrean bun coffee ceremony.

Vintage Macchiato Bars, Eritrean Bun Ceremonies and Highland Food

Walking along Harnet Avenue and its side streets, you will pass dozens of historic pastry shops (pasticcerie) and bars whose neon signs, chrome counters and wood panelling have barely changed since the 1950s. Step inside Bar Vittoria (near the covered market, operating for over a century), Café Cristal, Pasticceria Moderna or the lobby bar of Cinema Impero. Order a macchiato (served in a small glass with a spoonful of dense milk foam), a cappuccino or a ginger-spiced tea alongside a tray of paste (millefoglie, ricotta-filled cannoli, cream horns and brioche).

For dinner and lunch, Asmara rotates effortlessly between traditional Tigrinya highland dishes and Italian trattorias:

• Zigni and Tsebhi: Eritrea's national dish, slow-simmered cubes of highland beef or lamb braised in a rich, rusty-red sauce of onions, tomatoes and fiery berbere spice blend, ladled onto a wide round platter of sour fermented injera flatbread made from tiny taff grains.
• Shiro and Fasting Platters (Yetsom Beyaynetu): velvety spiced chickpea-flour stew bubbling in a clay pot (shiro), or colourful vegan spreads of lentils, collard greens, split peas and potatoes served on Wednesdays and Fridays.
• Ful and Kitcha Fit-Fit: fava beans mashed with cumin, olive oil, green chillies, tomato and yoghurt eaten with crusty bread rolls for breakfast, or shredded flatbread tossed in spiced clarified butter (tesmi) and berbere.
• Handmade pasta and pizza: fresh lasagne, tagliatelle al ragù and wood-fired pizzas served with a bottle of cold Asmara Beer (brewed in the city since 1939 by Luigi Melotti) or fiery aniseed areki liqueur.

The Eritrean Railway and the Escarpment Edge

At the eastern edge of Asmara near the Arbaete Asmara quarter stands the railway depot of the Ferrovia Eritrea, built between 1887 and 1932 to climb 2,394 metres from the Red Sea at Massawa through thirty tunnels and sixty-five viaducts onto the highland plateau. Here, veteran octogenarian engineers still maintain historic pre-war Ansaldo 440 and 442 Mallet steam locomotives and 1930s Fiat Littorina railcars. Charter runs between Asmara, Arbaroba and Nefasit over the cliff-edge viaducts of Devil's Gate can be arranged for groups through the railway office, or you can walk out to the escarpment rim near Bet Gergis (once your permit is in hand) to watch the clouds surge up from the Red Sea plain.