Pasticceria Sensi

A family pastry shop since 1969

Pasticceria Sensi was founded in 1969 by Orlando and Stella, a married couple, in a small workshop in the centre of Assisi. In 1986 their children took over a historic café-pastry shop between Piazza Santa Chiara and Piazza del Comune: it is the Bar Sensi at Corso Mazzini, 14, where you can sit down. The workshop with shop is still at Vicolo degli Esposti, 1. Both open every day, from 7:00 to 20:30.

It is the cheap and easy place in Assisi: a breakfast before going down to the basilica, a coffee mid-afternoon or a box of sweets to take home.

What to order

The Assisi rocciata is the house sweet: a spiral roll of thin dough filled with apple, walnuts, raisins and dried fruit. The individual portion costs €5 and there is also a chocolate version; the whole one, for 8 to 10 people, €28. Other Umbrian sweets they sell: the pagnotta francescana, a sweet bread of about 400 g (€9), the biscotto francescano and the tozzetti, almond biscuits for dipping in vin santo (€8 per 200 g), the brutti ma buoni and the pancaciato, a bread with cheese (€3 per 100 g). In season, the Easter cake, at €28 a kilo. They also make brustengolo, another Umbrian sweet.

In the café there is everything for breakfast and tea: coffee, cappuccino, latte macchiato and marocchino, with house pastries and something savoury.

Getting there

Corso Mazzini is the street linking Piazza del Comune with Santa Chiara: if you go from one to the other, you pass in front of it. From the basilica of St Francis it is about ten minutes' walk along Via San Francesco and Via Portica. The centre is pedestrianised; if you arrive by car, leave the car at Piazza Matteotti and walk down.