At 31, Vlad Viziteu started a unique roastery in a small space in Bucharest's Sector 1. It was 2020, and nothing he did there seemed to seek attention: just a Diedrich IR-12 installed from day one and the conviction that Romanian specialty coffee needed people who roasted, not coffee shops with marketing over the bean. Five years later, the Incognito Coffee Roasters story moved into a raw concrete building, and the first floor is now a coffee shop.
Born in Botoșani, Vlad spent two years in Berlin before settling in Bucharest in 2010. The first job he mentions – in a 2021 interview for SMARK – was in specialty coffee. There, he learned two things that defined him: espresso machine maintenance and coffee roasting. From being a technician and employed roaster to owning his Diedrich IR-12, it was a pragmatic decision.
The roastery opened in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. A small space, no terrace, no kitchen. Just the Diedrich in the back, subscriptions for home customers, and the first B2B partners. Strategy: small batches, slow conversion, no commercial pressure in a city that was just discovering what specialty meant.
In the same interview from December 2021, Vlad rejected the myth of the entrepreneur working 16 hours a day. "16 hours a day is not necessarily constructive," he said then. In the same conversation, he described specialty coffee as wine: a body of knowledge that has become a sign of social positioning.
December 2025 marks the pivot. Incognito moves from its original space to the building designed by architect Bogdan Gyemant-Selin, on Institutul Medico-Militar Street 22, Sector 1. Raw concrete, ground floor and first floor for the coffee shop and kitchen, with the roastery in the basement. The Diedrich moves down one level but remains the center of everything that comes out of the building. The coffee travels two floors up to the cup.
Five months after the coffee shop opened, Incognito continues to describe itself as "a roastery that serves a coffee shop" - not the other way around. A subtle distinction, but one that defines how the business is seen from the inside. Vlad still roasts on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays - days when the coffee shop is closed to the public. The roasting schedule is built as part of the identity, not as a logistical compromise.
The model has assumed limits. Batches are small, lists change often. Incognito doesn't claim to have all the world's coffees in stock at all times - it prefers to say exactly what is available now and why. "We don't invent. We just say what we can deliver" - an internal formula that appears in public communications.
For first-time visitors to the coffee shop: the ground floor smells like what came out of the Diedrich this week. Next week it might be something else.
The full interview "[New Entrepreneurs] Vlad Viziteu: People often talk about the entrepreneur who works 16 hours a day, but I don't think it's necessarily constructive" is available on SMARK at this link (subscription required).