Lello 1375 Ariete Cafe Prestige Coffee Maker

I lived in Europe for a while, I got hooked on the Espresso. Came back here and almost bought a breville, for $400 and read some reviews on how it wasn't that good. I usually buy the most expensive item when I shop- thus I relate it to quality. This machine is NICE, it's heavy duty, all metal, works fast, and if you use some good espresso like ILLY, it'll crank out some very good cups of espresso. Seriously I saw some of the bad reviews but they are really from people who have their nose up and think making coffee should be some sort of art-- GET A GRIP, MAKE your espresso, and GET to WORK-that's exactly what this machine does. It's a no joke, no frills espresso machine. This machine is nice, looks great, and makes great espresso, just use good grinds ( fine ILLY) and you're set. I love how this thing isn't expensive. I mean under $100 that's awesome. I think this is the BEST espresso machine for the money - I never write reviews, but after I used this one, I knew that it deserved something. It saved me money and the espresso is good with good crema. Plus, people dig the way it looks in my kitchen. WORD!

I'm writing this from the perspective of a coffee drink lover, not an espresso lover. If you're an espresso purist, this is probably not the review you're looking for. I like lattes and cappuccinos. In my attempts at making them, I didn't much like the scalded flavor my old steam machine introduced into the drinks. It was time to step up to a pump machine, which was the easy decision. Much harder was deciding on a brand and model from the wide range of choices to consider. Honestly, it just didn't seem like a person should have to spend $1,000 or even $500 to score a pump machine that would produce killer coffee drinks. I wanted a machine that was easy to use, easy to clean, and designed and constructed to last, given a usage pattern of about 8 - 12 times a week. Appearance wasn't much of a factor; we don't have a designer kitchen. We do cherish counter space though, so I didn't want a huge monstrosity or something heavier than a boat anchor, thus being a real pain to move or store. Enter the Cafe Prestige. As of this writing, I've used it about 50 times, and I'm convinced I've chosen a true winner here. While my first couple of uses weren't spectacular, it didn't take long to get into a very comfortable rhythm with the machine. Now, I'm producing coffee drinks of a consistent quality that eliminates all temptation for me to make a trip to the local barista, leaving them a small investment in exchange for a fix. Friends and family, who've sampled the results, agree. Things I like about this machine: 1. Construction - sturdy. Heavy, but not excessively so. I store it on a top shelf in our pantry when not in use. 2. Ease of use. The generous water reservoir is simple to fill; I just top it off while it's mounted. The two position switch gives you either espresso or steam; no hassle. The portafilter and basket are E-Z to get on and off. Nice orientation on the steam wand. 3. Cleaning is a snap 4. Very reasonable noise level 5. Speed - quick to whip up a drink, followed by another. I've done 4 back-to-back. 5. Fantastic steam power. The wand and attachment can produce amazing, luscious foam. 6. It's forgiving The last point - forgiving - is a big one. Not being a purist, I don't have a high dollar grinder. I don't faithfully store and use my beans for maximum freshness. I don't pre-warm the utensils, other than steaming my coffee mug and microwaving the milk. Yet, I get delicious results time and again from the Cafe Prestige. What I don't like: 1. The plastic tamper. I bought a metal one to use; if this matters to you, check out my review of the one I purchased. 2. At times when steaming is first switched on, a couple of spurts of water emerge from the wand before steaming action begins. I lay a cloth underneath to catch those. 3. It feels to me that the steam wand and its swivel are a bit fragile. When I clean it, I take a cloth and pinch the top of the wand hose to keep it steady and prevent stress on the swivel point. As you can see, no showstoppers here. The only open item for me at this point is whether the Cafe Prestige has the longevity I want; time will tell regarding that. Meanwhile, if you're in the market for a pump machine mainly to use for producing coffee drinks, you should take a serious look at this one. Price-wise, performance-wise, it feels like an incredible bargain. UPDATE: July 2009 After 6 months of steady use, I can vouch for my Cafe Prestige having paid for itself twice over. Here are a few additional observations. Though I use a burr grinder, I have an extremely ancient model, an old Waring. That said, I do grind my beans about as fine as possible and tamp them very firmly into the basket. I use a range of different beans, depending on my mood, but I've made it a point to buy them from coffee shops instead of the grocery store. With the consistency of the Cafe Prestige, I've felt at times that some of my grocery store bean purchases were stale or 'off' in flavor, and, consequently, I pitched them. Fresh beans definitely make a difference. Logic has it that you should clean your maker thoroughly and frequently; some would suggest multiple times a week. For me, I rinse and wipe down the portafilter, basket, steam wand, steam attachment, flow screen, and portafilter gasket after each use. I can go about a week before cleaning the drip tray; any longer leads to interesting life forms sprouting. Lastly, I've set a 3 month schedule for flushing the maker. For this, I've found Cleancaf works wonders, which you can pick up online or at a local coffee store. It's fantastic stuff. BTW, all my cleaning is by hand, not in the dishwasher. There's only a little to do, so it doesn't take much time. My preference is for using only distilled water. It seems to help ensure consistency in your brews. Also, it tends not to deposit as much scale in the maker, which eases cleaning. Don't forget to occasionally empty and clean the plastic water reservoir as I've found even distilled water can pick up stray flavors when it sits for a while. Finally, I can't say that I've had any explosions with my Cafe Prestige, but I did have a traumatic event that might count as such. With regular use, the portafilter seems to become a bit loose in its twist mount. When I first started using the maker, I could let it dispense a double shot without me touching it. Then, one day, the pump pressure caused the portafilter to unscrew and fall off, which sent steam and espresso spraying, explosive-like. Since then, I make sure I keep one hand on the portafilter handle when the espresso is flowing, and I've had no other incidents or problems. I certainly don't consider this a critical flaw or a reason not to purchase the Cafe Prestige. Strongly recommended... still.

This is an amazing espresso machine for the money. I wanted to run it through its paces for a few months before reviewing it. After almost 3 months and over 100 double shots, I am ready. I am a straight shot drinker; I never knew how smooth and intense espresso could be until I got this machine. Crema is good. I subsequently tried a few offerings from espresso bars and found them completely disappointing; I doubt I will visit another espresso shop any time soon. If you have problems with the machine, call Lello Appliance: 201-939-2555. The one year warranty is meaningless if you don't know whom to call. Amazon could not provide this info. Lello is very responsive in my experience. Steaming is adequate. My wife and guests like cappuccinos and lattes. I use a 20 oz Krups pitcher, and it works all right. It is shorter and wider than some of the others. I think a smaller pitcher might work better. I use a thermometer to keep from scorching the milk. I like to mix a drink that I found online called a "flat white". After you steam the milk, stir the froth into the hot milk in the pitcher to make a uniformly velvety thick mixture and pour this into the cup. I always like to make milk drinks in a clear glass cup. The appearance of the layering of foam, milk and coffee is impressive. I steam the milk, make the espresso in the clear cup, and then pour the foam over it. That way, the crema from the espresso, with a lot of the flavor, stays in the cup instead of sticking to the wall of the shot glass. Experiment with how much coffee you put in the filter. Do not overfill the filter, but I find that experimenting with the amount of coffee I use has improved the quality of my espresso. The amount used can vary according to the type of coffee, roast, and grind. I use less of a darker roast, for example, to avoid a bitter flavor. The keys to quality are 1) The coffee and roast, 2) the grind, and 3) the time spent brewing. THE COFFEE: I used to drink dark roasted coffees like Starbuck's. I found that purchased dark roasted coffees taste burnt and bitter when made into espresso. A lighter roast is called for. I decided to start roasting my own green coffee. I use my long-disused hot air popcorn popper for the task. I found good instructions for roasting and a good selection of green coffees at Sweet Maria's on-line. Their espresso blends or Timor Maubesse (Indonesian) beans roasted to Vienna roast, a shade lighter than French roast, made fine espresso with good crema. It is very easy to control how dark your roast is. You do need good ventilation. If you do not roast your own, the beans you buy should not be the darkest roast available. The finest coffees available are arabica beans grown at high altitudes. The robusta coffees are bitterer and have much more caffeine; they make up large part of the canned coffee blends on the market. While the arabica beans are much better tasting when brewed into coffee, by themselves they do not produce as good espresso as a blend of quality arabicas with 10-15% good quality robusta added for its taste and crema producing qualities. The green espresso blends that I buy have a small percentage of robusta added. For the reviewer I read who thought that the espresso she made did not have enough of a jolt, a blend containing some robusta might take care of that problem. THE GRIND: A friend of mine who has made espresso for decades has never bought a fancy grinder; he uses a blade grinder and grinds very fine. I do not recommend this for this machine with its pressurized portafilter. Fine particles of an uneven or very fine grind can plug the filter; it can sometimes be hard to unplug the filter. I bought a Capresso Infinity grinder from Amazon. For under $100, it produces a fairly consistent grind. You do not need to tamp the coffee hard in the portafilter. The quality of the brew is determined by the fineness of the grind. I experimented a bit with grind. I found a grind that occasionally plugged the filter. Set one notch coarser it produced a consistently good espresso without plugging the filter. So I think that the finest grind you can get without plugging the filter is probably best. When experimenting with grind, be careful. One detractor who gave a poor review to this machine says that there is danger of the machine exploding. If you do not see coffee coming out of the portafilter within a few seconds of turning the dial to the right, shut off the machine and clean out the filter. Then use a slightly coarser grind. If the machine does not deliver coffee and the pump is left on, a messy explosion seems likely. This seems like common sense to me. The fact that the detractor experienced an explosion is a testament to the amount of pressure the pump delivers. AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT BREWING If you do enough research on line about espresso, you will find a reference to the "Golden Rule". This rule states, as I understand it, that drawing a double shot should take 20-25 seconds. If it takes less time to draw a 2-2 1/2 ounce shot, it will be weak; if it takes longer, it will be "over-extracted" and bitter. If you have an expensive machine with a commercial non-pressurized portafilter, the proper combination of tamp pressure and grind to get this brewing time will produce good espresso. With a pressurized portafilter on this machine, tamp is fairly unimportant. The extraction time is therefore controlled by the fineness of the grind. I have found that if I adjust the grind as explained above, it does take 20-25 second to get the shot. Never leave the cup under the spout after shutting the pump off. After you shut off the pump, the coffee that flows from the machine is not extracted under pressure and will taste like bilge. Let the coffee extract under pressure for the full 20-25 seconds, move the cup from under the spout as you shut off the pump. The last few drips should go into the tray. PROBLEMS I gave it four stars only because there were enough very soluble glitches to make learning how to use the machine a bit trying. I destroyed a gasket before I realized that tightening the group head more did not prevent the first shot from being a total bust. Unless you warm up the machine for at least 10 minutes, run a blank shot through the machine, because all you will get is steam and espresso that tastes like dishwater. After destroying the gasket, I found the service number for Lello Appliance: 201-939-2555. They acknowledged that the original gaskets were not very good and sent me 2 new ones via priority mail; I got these in two days. Another minor glitch is that not all of the water draining from the machine goes into the drip tray. Some water ends up leaking under the drip tray; but as long as the drip tray is emptied timely there will not be enough overflow to leak onto the counter. The cup warmer is a joke. Have some hot water going near your machine to preheat cups. This is especially important when making milk drinks, which is a longer process. It is now 4/14/2009 two years and change since I bought the machine. I use it every day for an average of 3-4 double shots per day. It still makes the best espresso I have had. Except for the leaking drip tray, it gives me no problems. Part of the quality has to do with the gourmet green coffee beans I buy from [...] and roast at home in a hot-air popcorn popper. The rest has to do with the machine. My cousin has a Rancilio Silvio, a highly rated and expensive machine. My machine is easier to use and pulls a tastier shot. 1/23/2011 it is now four years since I bought the machine. Still working as new! I never liked the pressurized portafilter that came with the machine It is always getting plugged and is hard to clean once plugged. I discovered via a forum on coffeegeek.com that you can get a non-pressurized filter basket, La Pavoni 2 cup MP-68 Millenium Edition Europiccola/Professional non-pressurized basket, a 51mm basket that fits the portafilter fairly precisely. Remove the black "pressurizer" by removing the screw at the bottom of the filter. You have to flatten the rounded rim on the new basket. I did this by inverting the basket and carefully flattening the rounded edge using a large pin punch--a small bolt or steel rod would work--and tapping it with a hammer. You need to get a better tamper and use a finer grind. The end result is the best cup yet with real crema. You need to adjust the grind and tamp pressure to get the espresso shot to draw in 20-25 seconds. The only drawback is that the seal was not as good as with the old basket. I fixed that by smoothing the imperfections resulting from the way I flattened the rim by rubbing the inverted basket on a knife sharpening stone until it was evenly smoothed. 12/26/2012 The machine finally died in late summer. It has a leak in the pump which has gotten worse. They will not send you parts; the only option is to send the machine in for refurbishing. Probably cheaper to get a refurb. I am not altering the rating; after 5 years of use, I definitely got my $100 dollars worth. This machine with the La Pavoni portafilter made the best espresso I have ever had or, frankly, that most of my friends have had. I got a "Presso" manual expresso maker locally to use while I decide what to do. At $120, I heartily recommend this machine. After 3-4 months with the Presso, I doubt I will get another semi-automatic machine soon.

Amazing espresso machine, beats all other brands in the same price range with its features, I highly recommend it.

unit put in service just today but unit powers on but does not work what do i do with this item return window closed in november 2018

Water doesn't pass through the machine. Returned to amazon.

got this and there way very little steam and coffee was not hot.