On her first day working at the cafe she’d bought with her husband, Anna Agovino was nervous. “I’d never made espresso. I’d never made a cappuccino in my life,” she said. But that changed quickly. “In one day, I learned,” she said. Over two decades later, she remains both the barista and the fiery personality behind La Casa del Caffe in the Morris Park section of The Bronx. Regulars say her espresso is the best in the city.

Her secret is a mixture of precision and heart. “A clean machine, good coffee, and you have to love what you do,” she said. An obsessive who drinks between 13 and 14 herself in a day, she says she can gauge an espresso’s quality by the look alone. “When it’s too dark, it’s not good,” she said. For her, the best espresso is medium-brown in color with a light foam on top.