The Little Guy - Stove Top Espresso Coffee Machine

The Little Guy - Stove Top Espresso Coffee Machine

In 2005 in Sydney, Australia, Craig Hiron looked at his iconic stovetop espresso coffee maker and wondered if it could be re-engineered internally so it'd pull genuine espresso coffee shots and texture milk perfectly. Craig's passion for espresso coffee demanded both the shots and the milk texture had to be to the standards of the best cafes in the world.

The Little Guy is an homage to Giordano Robiatti's design classic, originally patented in Milan in 1947. * 

Award-winning industrial designers, Tiller Design were engaged along with Dr Allan Wallace (a professor of thermal dynamics), mechanical specialists, engineers and a manufacturing agent, Doug Marshall. After four years of research, development, design, tooling and production, the Otto Espresso Maker became a reality,

In 2013 Otto espresso was rebranded as the Little Guy. The rebranding was purely a trademark change. The company ownership, our people and our highly functioning products remain exactly as they've always been.

Our design and build philosophy is simple. We produce products that are the best they can possibly be, with our costs and timelines being secondary to your experience. We make products people who love coffee, food, wine & design. People who happily invest in the integrity of products made perfectly. 

Function, ergonomics and aesthetics is key to us, in this order. Made with the highest quality materials available, and produced within 0.1mm accuracy, there are few domestic espresso machines made this well in the world. As a result, design awards have flowed: The Australian International Design Mark in 2008, the Chicago Athenaeum's 'Good Design' in 2011, International Design Excellence Award finalist in 2009 and a German Design Council nomination for the German Design Awards in 2013.