Bicerin

A bicerin (say bee-chay-REEN) is Turin’s signature hot drink: thick hot chocolate, espresso and cream, poured in layers into a small clear glass and drunk without stirring. The name literally means short glass, Piemonte Italia says. It’s most closely linked to Caffè Al Bicerin, a tiny café opposite Turin’s Santuario della Consolata that has served it for around two centuries. Here’s how to make one at home, and how much of its story is certain.

The short version

• Chocolate, then espresso, then cream, in layers in a small glass.
• Never stirred: you taste each layer as you drink.
• From Turin, descended from an older drink called the bavarèisa.
• Caffè Al Bicerin keeps its own recipe a secret.
• A long fan club: Afar names Cavour, Dumas, Nietzsche and Puccini among its visitors.

What’s in a bicerin?

Caffè Al Bicerin’s exact recipe is “closely guarded”, Afar says; Alberto Landi, who runs the café with Maritè Costa, told the magazine only that its hot chocolate follows an original formula and is “cooked for many hours”. Writer Marie Doezema tested several recipes and adapted this one for Afar (halved here to make one glass):

Layer	Amount for one glass
Hot chocolate: whole milk	½ cup (about 120 ml)
Hot chocolate: dark chocolate	1½ oz (about 40 g)
Espresso	2 shots
Whipped cream, sweetened to taste	¼ cup (about 60 ml)

How do you make a bicerin?

1. Make thick hot chocolate. Warm the milk and chopped chocolate together until boiling, then whisk hard for a couple of minutes until foamy.
2. Pour it into a small clear glass, ideally a stemmed goblet.
3. Trickle in the espresso gently, so you don’t disturb the chocolate below. See our espresso guide.
4. Top with whipped cream and serve at once, with a spoon.

Where does the bicerin come from?

Turin, from an older drink called the bavarèisa: Piemonte Italia describes it as coffee, chocolate and sweet milk cream, sweetened with syrup and served in large round glasses. At first the three ingredients came separately, in three versions: pur e fiur (“today’s cappuccino”, says Piemonte Italia), pur e barba (coffee and chocolate) and ‘n poc’ d tut, a bit of everything. The last one won. It always came with bagnati, biscuits in fourteen shapes.

The sources differ on dates:

Question	Piemonte Italia	Afar
The bavarèisa	18th century	17th century
Caffè Al Bicerin	Its origins are attributed to the café, of 1763	A café opened on the site in 1763; the drink, and the café’s present name, came about half a century later
Who first made it	Caffè Al Bicerin	Still debated in Turin

What’s certain is the café’s long life. Afar says the women of the Cavalli family ran it from 1910 to 1977, and that worshippers from the church across the piazza made it a place to break their fast after communion. In 1800s Turin it was one of the few cafés thought respectable for women on their own. Umberto Eco set a scene there in The Prague Cemetery (2010), quoted on the café’s own website, and noted that even Alexandre Dumas wrote about the bicerin. Other historic Turin cafés serve it too, Afar adds, including Caffè Fiorio (1780) and Baratti & Milano (1858).

Bicerin vs other sweet coffees

• Caffè mocha: espresso, chocolate and milk, mixed rather than layered.
• Affogato: espresso poured over vanilla ice cream.
• Einspänner: Vienna’s coffee under a cap of whipped cream.
• Café bombón: Spain’s layered espresso and condensed milk.

Explore every drink in the sweet and spiced chapter.