Melée Café

Miriana Mariotti opened Melée in January 2021, mid pandemic, with a business partner who left the project after about a year, leaving her to steer the tiny Bolognina shop toward specialty coffee on her own. She discovered filter coffee while working at the American diner chain America Graffiti and trained up from there, building a house espresso blend from Torrefazione Paradiso alongside rotating single origins from Caffè Terzi, Pacamara Coffee Lab, and other small Italian and international roasters.

Cold brew is the shop's biggest seasonal seller, and the food program leans on outside specialists, croissants from the historic Bologna bakery Pallotti and vegan pastries like cinnamon rolls and banana bread from a small nearby lab called Ambè. Just outside the old city walls, the room seats eight indoors and about twenty on the terrace.