You cannot admire a staircase like Caffè Torino’s without imagining a diva’s gloved fingers sliding slowly the handrail. This sumptuous scenography has admired by more than one, from Ava Gardner, at the time of her love story with Walter Chiari, to timeless Brigitte Bardot, who seemed to order a coffee "chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange et doux comme l'amour", as stated in a painted maxim on the coffered ceiling. A little further on, “È una vecchia storia, ma rimane sempre nuova” (That’s an old story yet always new): German poet Heine’s verses describe a spot where Belle Époque never seems to end.