Diesel Cafe

The Diesel latte is the drink with the house name on it, and it has been poured in Davis Square since 1999.

Start with the Diesel latte

The clearest named drink here is the Diesel latte, the one the cafe puts forward itself, and it anchors an espresso programme that runs through the day rather than sitting behind the food. Coffee is the point: the cafe is built around excellent coffee drinks, with breakfast and lunch alongside them instead of the other way round. Espresso drinks and brewed coffee carry the day, and the food follows the same everyday logic.

Order the latte first if you want the most visible thing on the board, then read the rest as the everyday coffee-shop range it is, brewed coffee and espresso drinks with pastries and sandwiches to go with them.

A Davis Square fixture

Diesel has been part of the Davis Square landscape since 1999 and calls itself Somerville's fueling station, a description that has held through more than two decades of daily use. It presents as a coffee-focused cafe rather than a short-run concept, open across the day for coffee drinks, breakfast, lunch, pastries and sandwiches, and it caters as well. More than two decades in one square is its own kind of credential, and the room has absorbed the neighbourhood's habits in that time.

The room is large, art-filled and industrial in design, a welcoming enclave of art and industrial detail with the energy of a busy neighbourhood cafe. It is generally busy, so at popular times finding a seat shapes the visit as much as the queue does.

What to build the visit around

Keep the order to what Diesel emphasises: the Diesel latte, the wider range of coffee drinks, and a pastry, a sandwich or a breakfast or lunch plate beside it. The food is best understood by category rather than by a single signature dish, which suits how the place is actually used, as a regular stop rather than a destination meal.

Diesel's weight comes from continuity. Since 1999 it has presented itself as a Davis Square fueling station and a Somerville fixture, and its strongest signals are longevity, the attention its design has drawn, and a lasting public association with coffee drinks, pastries, sandwiches and one named latte. For a first visit: the Diesel latte, a pastry or a sandwich, and a casual cafe shaped by art, industrial design and long neighbourhood use.