Trieste's cuisine reflects its layered history — you will find Austrian goulash and strudel sitting alongside Slovenian bean soups, Friulian cured meats, and Adriatic seafood. The city takes its food seriously without fuss. The local street food is pane e sardoni (bread and fresh sardines), and the fish market on the Ponterosso canal is worth a visit early in the morning.
The Triestine obsession with coffee deserves special mention. Trieste has the highest per-capita coffee consumption in Italy, and the terminology is local — a capo is what the rest of Italy calls a macchiato, a nero is an espresso. The historic cafés that line the city centre are the place to drink it.