La Fenice

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2025-03-23

The gelato place sits at the bottom of a new developer building. It is clean. It is empty. A man could get lonely there but the coffee is hot. They call it La Fenice. The phoenix. Something reborn from ashes. New Haven has ashes enough. The ceiling is black and unfinished. The chandeliers hang like forgotten promises. You expect one to fall. It would make a good story. Better than the one about the coffee. There is marble on the walls. Not real marble. It is backlit. The Italians would laugh. The Italians are not here. A tall woman orders at the counter. Yale type. The kind that belongs to the university. You can tell by the way she stands. By the way she expects. She does not smile at the barista. The barista does not smile back. They understand each other. The coffee comes in white cups with brown sleeves that say they are good for the earth. The earth does not care about coffee sleeves. The coffee is not bad. It is not good. It is coffee. The gelato sits in metal bins. It does not slump like American ice cream. It stands at attention. The stracciatella has chocolate in it. The chocolate is small and thin and hidden until you find it. Like truth. A man could sit here all day watching the people who come and go. The professors with leather bags. The students with bright clean sneakers that have never seen war. The locals who look at the Greenwich prices and leave. The pastries in the case are prisoners behind glass. They look European from a distance. Up close they are just pastries. They are not bad. They are not memorable. You will not write home about them. New Haven is a city with two faces. The Yale face is clean and thinks. The other face is hungry and knows things the Yale face will never learn. La Fenice tries to speak to both faces. It speaks to neither well. If you are tired and in New Haven and want coffee or gelato or to sit somewhere that is neither Yale nor not-Yale, go to La Fenice. The chairs will hold you. The coffee will wake you. The gelato will be cold and sweet and will melt before you understand it. That is enough. It has to be enough. The truth about coffee shops is they are never what we want them to be. La Fenice knows this. It does not pretend. There is honor in not pretending. The students tap on laptops. The machines steam milk. Outside the world goes by. A good café is a clean well-lighted place. This one has good light. It is clean. It will do until something better comes along. In New Haven, that might be a long wait.

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2025-03-02

Amazing coffee, pastries, sandwiches, and of course…gelato! All hand-crafted with exceptional ingredients and care by the very friendly owners and staff. Unfortunately, I’m in the neighborhood for a limited time and I’ll miss being a regular at La Fenice.

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2025-03-10

I love this place! The sandwiches and gelato are amazing!! Everything is fresh and beautifully prepared. The coffee shop is beautiful!