Sitting along via Colombo with a view of the port (and its parking lot… can’t have everything) Malindi is Monopoli’s only port-side cafe. There is no other place to take a coffee on the patio, observe the yachts coming in, and go for a walk along the port towards the castle. In that respect, Malindi is nearly unbeatable.
Malindi serves Valentino coffee which, though one of the better ones, doesn’t come quite so far as to emulate the exceptional coffee quality seen at Cafe Roma. Which isn’t to say that Malindi serves a bad cappuccino, not at all. On the contrary, I alternate between here and Roma quite frequently… But I’d by lying if I said it wasn’t mainly for the location and the exceptionally friendly staff.
There isn’t much here in the way of pastries, and the few sitting behind the glass look as if they’ve been there from the day (or five) before. Additionally they only carry plain cornetti which, depending on whether you want chocolate or jam, they then slice open and spread nutella or various fruit jams inside. As a result, the pastries aren’t up to par with most of the city’s other cafes and aren’t anything you couldn’t do before leaving home in the morning if you bought a cornetto from the baker the night before.
Malindi offers patio seating in addition to several tables inside where you can watch the music videos that roll by on a large tv screen or just take in the tropical decor of wallpapered islands and palm trees set to an orange-brown sunset vibe.
Worth a stop purely for the friendly staff and port-side view.
Address Via Cristoforo Columbo 16 Public transport N/A: It’s small town in Italy – you can walk.
Opening times As this is Italy, my putting up the hours would be pointless. Opening and closing times are completely up to the whim of the owner. Being closed on Tuesday is something you can take to the bank… though preferably not an Italian one.
Cost € Telephone N/A Website N/A
My Life in Transit 