Lello 1375 Ariete Cafe Prestige Coffee Maker

This is an excellent espresso maker for the price when you get it exactly right - you need to be precise with the grind of the coffee, the amount of coffee and how hard you pack it. Plus you need to regularly clean the filter because the very fine holes get easily clogged. If you do all that you get brilliant espresso with fantastic crema. It also froths milk beautifully.

Plus it's a beautiful looking machine on your kitchen counter!

I bought this based upon looks - bad idea. It works okay and the water storage reservoir is nice, but...the bowl is too small and it seems to take longer to get good steam going. It is now sitting next to a cheaper Krups model.

Water tank difficult to fill and put back on. Nothing seems to fit quite right on it. I've had other espresso makers and this is the worst. Involved packing made it impossible to repack and return.

I've had my Ariete for a week now and it makes wonderful espresso, especially with raw grounds, but also somewhat less well with Lille prefab packets. (I've decided to go all fresh grounds - it's way cheaper, one can get better espresso coffee that way - at least here in NYC - and the mess is minimal if one simply uses a flexible plastic kitchen cutting board/matt upon which to tamp the grounds down into the holder with the tamping tool provided).

The main reason I'm bothering to write a review though is this. Earlier this morning I was about ready to return my unit to Amazon. Starting yesterday it had begun leaking out the junction between the grounds holder and the receptor gasket for it on the Ariete machine. Coffee was quite a bit weaker, steam and hot water began spewing out about halfway through the process, and it looked to get worse. I'd noticed that unlike the really firm and satisfying slow stop to the grounds holder after applying firm or even hard pressure on it's lever arm that the instructions recommend, the handle went all the way to the left and was stopped by some metal stop, rather than being too tight to get much further over with reasonable pressure. Uh, oh, I've already blown the seal I though. It's just too easy to do that ... Maybe I DID apply too much pressure ... Regardless, back to Amazon ....

Well guess what. I realized a bit ago that the two cup stainless espresso coffee grounds holder/filter was missing from it's cradle arm. I'd been putting the grounds "naked" into their holder. No wonder it bottomed out when tightening - there's about a 1/32" lip/flange to the stainless filter that was no longer there to tighten against. Yuup, it was in my trash. Fished it, that satisfying slow pressure stop to the grounds handle was back -- made another brew -- all was perfect

The moral of this story for me, aside from being a bit careful about knocking out the filter when tapping out the grounds (it is a pretty tight fit so one doesn't usually) is my vivid realization that the tolerances on this machine are REALLY close. That stands to reason - it takes lots of pressure on the steam to make a great cup of espresso.

What that means, on just a moments reflection, is that if you've got a unit that leaks (as many unhappy commenters do) with one of the stainless filters in fact in place, you probably were unlucking enough to get a unit with a manufacturing micro glitch in meeting the tight machining specs. In all likelihood Areitte or whoever the owning corp. is, isn't paying for lots of really good quality control over in China where these are made.

WE, the retail customers, are the quality control.

What THAT means to me is that if you had bad luck, realize that's in all likelinood what it is. Definitely return your unit. But the design is great. In all likelihood a replacement unit won't also turn up bad in this quality control lottery, though once in a while it might.

Well, I guess I may sing a different, less happy tune after the passage of more time, but that's how things seem to me now.

We after all aren't paying a lot for this Italian designed but Chinese made machine. Taking some quality control risk seems to me a fair trade. I'd be unwilling to pay twice or half again as much to run a much lower risk of having to return a unit, myself. YMMV.

This is a really nice machine, especially considering the price. My 16 year old son, who wants to be a chef, gets up a half an hour earlier (5:30am!!) every morning now, just so he can make himself a latte. It's easy to use and makes a really nice espresso.