Prima Cosa Caffe

The cappuccino was pretty good, but what made the place for me was the prosciutto, arugula, and mozzarella di bufala panini. Water buffalo mozzarella! This is a very authentic Italian panini. It was so good, I want to give the Montgomery/​Sansome BART station a Unilocal rating.

Prima Casa Caffe is a quintessentially European coffee spot at One Embarc. They serve Illy coffee– the best, and the baristas are talented and skillful. The coffee is never burned and I love the little designs they make in your latte. Always super packed, but super fast. Get your order right the first time.

No line at 8am on a Friday? Great start to my morning!
Single shot Lavender Mint Latte (4.15) — Light lavender taste and not too sweet. Delicious! Kinda pricey given the size which is not necessarily a bad thing since grabbing one on the daily would be quite dangerous. This is definitely a treat.
This place is right next to my office so I will definitely be back to try the other drinks!

Love the lavendar mint latte and friendly hip baristas in the middle of the finance world. The vanilla clove latte sounds so good, but the flavor is too subtle.
No real seating inside, but there are public tables across the street. Great for grab n go too :)

TL: DR Perfect coffee. Perfect service.
Quick transaction for beautifully crafted coffee. They learn your name quickly and get you out the door. It’s a must for me when I’m downtown.

They make the best cappuccinos! I don’t know how they get that foam so perfect, but I love it! They are really nice there, and fast too. There is a lot of coffee around these parts now, but for cappuccinos, for my money this is the place!

A hidden gem of a place without hype or a long line, but it’s really solid.

Coffee is OK but the service moves at a snail’s pace. Seems the baristas ring up and make only their own orders? Not very efficient, and sometimes leads me to miss my bus. Oh well. Anything is better than Starbucks.

This has been my go to coffee shop if I take muni onto Market St to work. They serve illy, with no seatings. I almost always get mint latte, tried other lattes like hazelnut and lavender mint but mint latte sticks. I wouldn’t compare it to philz’s mint mojito, which sets its own category and not fair to compare to latte. Single latte gets the small 12oz cup (you could ask them single shot in 16oz cup but they charge sometimes). Maybe it’s just me, but the coffee is not very strong (even double) so I usually get it when caffeine is optional for a work day.

I love this place! Their flavored lattes are SO GOOD! I like both the caramel and the hazelnut. I tried the lavender mint but didn’t really like it. I can never go to Starbucks/Peet’s again. The service is also fast and friendly. It’s not cheap, but since I’m quite sensitive to caffeine, it’s a «once-​in-​a-​while» treat for me.

Ordered: Lavender Mint Latte
I am a huge fan of Philz Mint Mojito iced coffee, so when I found out Prima Cosa Caffe has a Lavender Mint Latte I was really excited! However, I am pretty disappointed. It doesn’t taste like lavender. It doesn’t taste like mint. At most it is a sweeten latte. Even the temperature was not right. It was warm.
May be their regular coffee is better. For sure not lavender mint latte here!

I was in SF to meet a friend and decided to stop by after seeing the raving reviews below. But as a Philz Coffee enthusiast, I think I set my standards much too high. the Lavender Mint Latte tasted too simple. with not enough either mint or lavender. The latte was good for sure, but not anything special.
No seating, but the baristas are wonderfully sweet. They made my visit so very worth it.

I come here every single day, as I am sure many do. Not out of habit, but rather true love.
Not only do they have the only decent coffee within a convenient radius of my work (it is, in fact, superb), they stock Semifreddi’s pastries… and I cannot live without the occasional morning bun. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a life changing café, but it is what I need, what I want, and what I rely on for my daily (or twice daily!) pick me up.
What I love most of all are the people staffing this tiny little place. Every employee I’ve met has been truly warm and engaging with me (maybe not in the midst of the mad morning rush of caffeine addicts), on top of being speedy, funny, and interesting. Give those boys and girls a raise!
Big love to this little place and I hope to keep coming to you for my daily cup (s) of coffee. Can’t go wrong with a cappuccino before work and a macchiato and a chat after lunch. You keep goin’, Prima Cosa, even though your panini are becoming an expensive habit. And, okay, when I said «not out of habit,» I may have lied, but it’s a happy habit to have!

In the financial you have two types of people. You have the type that have become drones to Starbucks and peets and you have the type who still know good coffee and haven’t been sucked in by things that have nothing to do with the coffee like caramel drizzle, whipped cream or sugar bits and chocolate shavings. Although, peets does have some good blends, the other place has just turned into a completely different animal or sea creature. I feel like drinking coffee should require tasting coffee. No matter what the drink is you expect to have two things…1) a good caffeine buzz 2) a taste of the coffee itself. It’s like eating steak. Yes, you want it prepared for you with seasoning or sauce at times but you do want to taste the flavor of the beef itself.
So I’m dedicated and admittedly addicted to Philz coffee. I love the simple preparation of their very complex blends. It was hard for me to do this review because I felt treacherous to Philz. But don’t worry Phil, I’ll never stray too far away. But I have found a very close second. For quite some time that second to me was Blue bottle but now, Illy coffee has taken that slot and it’s thanks to Prima Cosa’s preparation and presentation.
This is how the coffee shops first started off when they ransacked SF. This is still how the good shops in Northbeach do it and how Steps of Rome (still not over their shut down) used to do it. Well what do they do you ask?
Simple, they start with Great Coffee… in this case Illy, then they put that espresso machine to work by packing it in the right away and then frothing that milk the way it should be. They don’t just warm the milk and steam it, they froth it. I know I sound like a turd but I’m very particular about frothing. It does so much for taste, presentation, and my overall level of comfort.
So what to try. Regular drip is illy drip and it’s darn good. If I’m cheating on Philz I’m doing it with espresso so I can rationalize why I cheated. That said, my favorite here is the lavender mint latte. Man, I love this stuff and on any gloomy day this seems to just straighten me out. Another thing you should try here are the bobolonis. These are the little round donuts filled with raspberry, chocolate, or vanilla custard. Pricy for a donut but it goes great with the coffee. The service here is always on point. These are baristas that still present the coffee to you the way it should be. I can’t do the 5^th star as this is pricy coffee and they always run out of the boboloni. But I’m getting there. I am so close.
The jasmine latte is a close second here. For me the lavender is perfect. Really, since they do espresso right and froth the milk to perfection you can’t go wrong with any latte here. They know their latte.

Pint sized coffee shop that serves big Italian coffee flavors — - — Illy’s!
Illy’s is one of my favorite coffees. It’s bold, smooth coffee is I need to perk up my life! Pastries are pretty good too. Towards the end of the day, the pastries tend to disappear but the coffee is always available and always good!

Hazelnut, Jasmine, Mint, Vanilla.
Slow brew.
Iced illy-​fied drinks.
Something about this place makes me want to come back for trying more flavors and the quality.
Minus one star for no where to sit. This is a walk up, line up (usually busy at peak hours before work and after lunch), and to-​go.
Loveee.

Hooked on this place! They serve up Illy’s coffee. I normally come here for the hazelnut latte. Service is quick. Coffee is delicious. It’s Illy’s. It’s a tiny unpretentious café. What more can you ask for? 5 stars!

(reviewing this for the illy coffee & service)
The illy coffee was so good! Perfection :)
Service was friendly and fast.
Definitely a grab & go sorta place. No tables, and very hole-​in-​the-​wall.

Have to say that this Prima Cosa location has become one on my extremely small list of go-​tos when it comes to morning lattes & they offer latte-​perfection every time
So it was high time I updated my rating accordingly
Always creamy w/​the perfect coffee ratio — there has never been a burned or bitter taste — and it amazes me that it doesn’t matter who is making the latte, b/​c it is consistently perfect
They are also consistent w/​the awesome music they have streaming each morning & it is such a nice way to welcome the day & greet the morning. So for offering all kinds of consistency & fueling my morning needs, a happy & well-​deserved 5^th star!

Oh yeah, I remember when this closet of a place was a Pasqua in the late 80’s, and there was still a certain caché to the type of designer coffee they sold. But Starbucks bought them, and their coffee became more of a commodity than ever before. Now comes the next wave of designer coffee, and we have illy, which definitely is one of the smoother blends I’ve imbibed in this city. I first tried it at Espressamente iIly, the stylish espresso café on Battery, so it’s nice that this kiosk serves the same brew with less pomp and circumstance.
I committed a Euro-​faux pas and ordered a medium $ 3.45 Cappuccino in the afternoon (see photo). No Italian in an Armani suit would dare order cappuccino after ten in the morning, which is why I’m an Asian in a discount windbreaker from the Burlington Coat Factory drinking a cappuccino at one in the afternoon. The crusty sandwiches and baked goods from Semifreddi’s look awfully good (see photo), but they will have to wait for another day when I can afford the carbs. In the meantime, it’s good to know that I can get a shot of quality caffeine in this part of the FiDi.
COFFEE — 4 stars… smooth and lusty as illy can be
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… gee, it’s a closet with a bench
SERVICE — 3.5 stars… very perky… perhaps they shouldn’t drink their own product
TOTAL — 4 stars… a nice Euro-​break