Review - Tuscany Cafe

222 W. Rittenhouse Square (approx 19th and Locust)
215.772.0605
Yelp, Google Maps
M - F: 7 am - 8 pm, S: 8 am - 8 pm, S: 8 am - 7 pm

Tuscany Cafe

Located on the Western edge of Rittenhouse Square, Tuscany Cafe has some serious competition (most notably La Colombe). However, there is enough traffic in the Rittenhouse area that I think Tuscany has sufficient business. I went in with rather high expectations actually. Philly Magazine ranked Tuscany as the best café in 2004. I checked out the place mid-afternoon on a weekday and fully expected the place to be packed. I was rather pleasantly surprised to see that the café was fairly empty and made it a rather enjoyable experience. There's one thing that I hate about trying to study at a café - lugging a heavy backpack loaded with your laptop and heavy textbooks only to find that there's not a single open table at the café. I'm not sure what Tuscancy Cafe is like at peak hours especially considering they have a posted sign asking customers to refrain from studying during peak hours. But when I went, there were probably less than 10 customers.

Unsurprisingly, Tuscany Cafe uses La Colombe coffee, which is pretty much the gold standard coffee in Philadelphia (I've mentioned this before). They alternate between the different La Colombe blends offering a different light and dark roast each day. I chose the Venetian blend, which is a dark roast blend, which I paid $1.91 for with my credit card (I love places that don't have a minimum credit card charge). Perhaps it was because I went towards the end of the afternoon, but the coffee was honestly disappointing. It tasted slightly burnt and watered down. It was probably brewed several hours before... perhaps the coffee tastes better in the morning, but I was very disappointed. The café also boasts the usual selection of espresso drinks, pastries, and and sandwiches, but nothing out of the ordinary. The barista definitely knew what she was talking about and was very quick and speedy. But she was rather too curt to the point of being slightly rude. I didn't mind too much because I prefer quick service above anything, but I didn't really see the point of being that curt especially because there was no line behind me.

As a place to study, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, the café has fairly spacious tables. And there's a lot of them, 22 to be exact. Moreover, they have pretty speedy Wi-Fi (measured at 2.39 Mbps). But take that with a grain of salt. As previously mentioned, there were less than 10 customers in the café at the time. The place has a great ambiance too. Pretty good music track that isn't too loud. The walls are painted in pleasant colors, which gives it a very homey feel, and they display neat photographs of the surrounding Rittenhouse and Center City area. Moreover, the café is pretty clean too. On the other hand, there are some characteristics that make it a terrible place to study. First, it's pretty dark and gloomy in there, which is a shame! They have such a great location right next to Rittenhouse. I think if they had huge windows (like La Colombe), they could let in a lot more natural light. They do have a bunch of windows, but they're all tiny and do a terrible job of bringing in natural light. Second, they have absolutely no outlets. Actually, I'm wrong. They have ONE outlet near the entrance. I think it's probably a strategy to prevent people from camping out there all day and studying on their computers. Tuscany is probably a good place to read a book or chat with a friend. But if you want to do any kind of serious studying, I'd suggest finding an alternate location.

Bottom line, not the best studying spot and the coffee was weak. I'm not exactly sure why Philly Magazine ranked this place as te best café in 2004. Either their quality has drastically failed in the last 7 years, or the number of actual and legitimate cafés in the city have dramatically increased. If you're in the Rittenhouse area looking for a place to study, you'd do better going to other neighboring cafés (e.g., Elixr, La Citadelle, La Colombe, Nook, Cafe Loftus, and yes, even Starbucks).

2 out of 5 "beans." Comment below!