Alessi’s La Conica stovetop coffee maker a timeless classic

Good things are almost always worth revisiting.

Case in point: Alessi’s La Conica stovetop coffee maker. Designed by Italian architect Aldo Rossi back in the ’80s, it was the first mass produced design for the newly founded Officina Alessi, and its jaunty, circus-like, Memphis-style irreverence has set the tone for the Italian housewares company ever since.

I’ve had one since I got married 29 years ago this month, and packed it up and dragged it through several moves over the years — even though I’d moved on from the stovetop method to a drip and, more recently, a French press.

But since the coffee maker was both a design icon and a wedding gift from my husband’s dear friend, Giuseppe Vagge, it had survived my various purges and is still in the back of my kitchen cupboards several home addresses and almost three decades later.

Giuseppe, or Pepi as he is known to his friends and family, lives in Liguria, northwest Italy, and is religious about both contemporary design and his coffee. Years ago, the very first time we visited them in Santa Margherita, Pepi’s mother — even though she didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Italian — taught me how to make her famous pesto. And Pepi, who still doesn’t like to turn in for the night without a small, dark and intense coffee, taught me how to brew one on the stovetop.

The key, Pepi says, is to use Illy brand moka, not espresso. Unscrew your coffee pot into its three parts: fill the bottom with as much water as it will hold and then fill the middle metal filter part to the brim with coffee — without any pressing or tamping it down. Once reassembled, bring your little pot to the boil and then immediately turn off the flame and let sit for a few minutes before pouring.

In Italy, the classic Moka Express can be found in 90 per cent of kitch- ens. Alfonso Bialetti invented it in the ’30s, but the man who is credited with putting one in every Italian kitchen was his son, Renato, who died in February 2016. His comically mustachioed aspect graces Bialettis today via a delightful caricature by Paolo Campani. This summer I was reminded just how delicious Italian stovetop coffee can be while we were staying in a rented villa in Tuscany, and the only method available for java making was a suite of Bialetti pots in various sizes and vintages. The design is so elemental, every one of them, no matter how well used, still worked as if they were brand new. Pepi and his wife Rosella joined us for one wonderful, wine-filled night at the villa and after dinner he approved of my coffee method. In- deed, the moka the stovetop pots produced was a dark, divine elixir that had me dusting off my old La Conica on our return home. Of course, my own is significantly more blackened than the shiny one in this photo, but as with old friends and good memories, it seems somehow fitting that it has become burnished with time.

(Medium La Conica coffee maker, $375, williamashley.com) Karen von Hahn is a Toronto-based writer, trend observer and style commentator. Her new book, What Remains: Object Lessons in Love and Loss, is published by the House of Anansi Press. Contact her at kvh@karenvonhahn.com.