People sit around small tables, talking, laughing and eating everything from pasta to pastries while a breeze cools the warm air around them. A banner above the shaded brick courtyard announces the arrival Aroma Italian Café at 12 Commercial Alley, Portsmouth, the former home of The Den coffee shop. Inside, the shop is long and narrow. A beautiful wooden display case, built by the owner, greets customers with an offering of pastries. Behind the case is a kitchen only wide enough for a single person. Most days, that’s where you’ll find owner Armando Martorelli, a native of Naples, Italy.

After moving to the United States in April 1996, Martorelli set up a full dining Italian restaurant in Orlando, Fla., called Babbo Wine Bar & Café. However, he wanted something more. While most people native to New England vacation in Florida to thaw out, Martorelli and his family traveled north to the Seacoast four to five times a year to relax. When he began looking for a location to open a new restaurant, Portsmouth seemed like the natural choice. “I love the location. I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time,” Martorelli said in an interview during lunch Thursday, June 1, while he deftly manned the grill.

The café opens at 7:30 a.m. and customers can purchase cappuccino and breakfast. Beginning at 9:30 a.m. they can chose from a full menu, ranging from salads to fish to pasta, prepared fresh on the premises. Currently there is no closing time. One night they closed at 10:30 p.m., and the night before it was midnight. “When they stop coming, we close,” Martorelli says, adding that he’s waiting to get a better sense of the area and the customers before he sets a closing time.

He must be doing something right. By the fifth day of the café being open, he already had a few regulars. “People are already addicted!” he joked as one such person walked in. “I am very happy with the response so far.”

While there is currently not any indoor seating, plans to build an addition are already in the works and will be probably be completed by next summer. For now, customers can sit outside and enjoy their meals in the summer air, surrounded by trees and flowers, at one of Portsmouth’s few sidewalk cafés.

For more information, call the café at 603-436-0016.