In the age of triple ristrettos and double-shot flat whites the once beloved cappuccino has hit bottom, dismissed by coffee geeks as all froth and no substance. With the failure of Italy, espresso’s spiritual home, to catch onto the third wave of higher quality coffee it has sometimes seemed as if all of the trad capp’s once beloved bubbles have been popped.

Reviving the traditional cappuccino with quality espresso from the UK’s best roasters seemed like a stretch, figuratively and, given the milk texturing techniques, literally. That’s why in planning the 29 October CoffeeSaturday La Dolce Vita Pop-Up I sought support for the baristas Fabio Ferreira of Notes and Jeremy Challender of Prufrock.

Sue Aron, Chloe Callow and Ian James joined me in a Roman biscotti bakeoff. Sue, the creative force behind The Art of Puddings, baked pizza ebraica, which is not pizza as we know it but rather a distinctive biscuit from Rome’s Jewish quarter studded with nuts and fruits. Chloe The Faerietale Foodie and I both prepared tozzetti, the biscotti that is Rome’s answer to almond (or hazelnut) cantuccini. And Ian of Pie For Brains won the bake-off by the narrowest of margins with his take on brutti ma buoni (“ugly but good”), those impossibly light almond meringues.

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Guest of honour Katie Parla, creator of the new and indispensible Rome Dining App, provided an expert voice from the Eternal City. She’s my go-to source on all things edible and drinkable in Rome. Since I can’t always have Katie around I’m happy to have her app.

The La Dolce Vita pop-up concluded with a negroni pizza party. Pizzaiolo Herbie Leonelli of London’s great Datte Foco brought over Roman-style pizza al taglio.

So, yes, the 60-plus who signed up for this CoffeeSaturday pop-up did fall back in love with the traditional cappuccino. But, yes, the traditional cappuccino did have a lot of help.

The reasonably safe premise behind my CoffeeSaturday pop-up series was that there would be a correlation between the quality of the coffee and that of the conversation. Nothing new there: For centuries coffee shops have cultivated an open exchange of ideas, knowledge and opinions both meaningful and meaningless. I nevertheless chose to sweeten the equation with a third element: the cookie.

 For the first CoffeeSaturday pop-up at Prufrock in May I organised a speculoos bake-off and tasting. For the 3 September pop-up at the enchanting new location of the London coffee shop Tapped & Packed I invited my talented friends Thomas Bonasera and Ian James to join me in a biscotti bake-off.  Tapped & Packed managing director Richard Lilley made it a four-way competition: Richard’s cranberry almond honey biscotti vs Tom’s spelt almond biscotti vs Ian’s pistachio cranberry almond biscotti vs my chocolate hazelnut biscotti.

To complement the cookies T&P baristas Sang Ho Park and Rob Dunne brewed El Salvador San Rafael Bourbon beans from the outstanding UK roaster Has Bean for cups of filter coffee, espressos or flat whites. The San Rafael’s chocolate and hazelnut notes seemed a good match for nutty biscotti and a perfect one for my chocolate hazelnut variety.

Or maybe not. My #ChocHazel biscotti finished last in the bake-off. Ian’s #PistCranOrange biscotti won the competition and Tom’s #SpeltAlmond biscotti were a close second. From these results it seems clear that CoffeeSaturday voters drew one of two conclusions: Either harmonious flavours work better than matching ones when pairing coffee and cookies or Ian, Tom and Richard’s biscotti were just better the mine.