Refugees from Italy and Greece who arrived in Melbourne during World War II spawned a coffee culture that has now become an art form. The city's cafe proprietors get their unusual single-origin blends from the top coffee-growing regions across the globe. We are not only referring to traditional espresso drinks like lattes and flat whites, but also to more experimental methods like pour-overs, syphons, and cold-drips.
Melbourne's coffee and cafe culture are so well-known that the city has become synonymous with them. From fashionable cafés on Chapel Street to tucked-away corners in the central business district and outskirts roasteries, Melbourne is filled with wonderful venues to enjoy the greatest coffee and cuisine.
The only issue is deciding which destination to visit. In a city with so many great restaurants, it might be challenging to get a Sunday brunch reservation in advance. You may limit down your selections by perusing our list of the top cafés in Melbourne to visit in 2018. Stop by any of these coffee shops for a drink, and you'll wish you could stay all day.
The Best Coffee Shops In Melbourne
Melbourne's love of coffee has earned it international renown. Some of the top baristas in the world may be found working in its over 2,000 cafes. Some of the finest are listed here.
St Ali
Where:Yarra Place, South Melbourne, 12-18
ST ALi is the heart of the Renaissance coffee scene and the brainchild of Salvatore Malatesta. A leading Melbourne experimental coffee maker, micro-roaster, green bean merchant, and country-of-origin expert, ST Ali is located in a graffiti-covered alley and sports furnishings straight out of a trash can. One of the nicest things about this cafe is that it serves delicate cold-drip coffee, which has a mild flavour and is low in acidity and bitterness.
Proud Mary
Where: Oxford Street, 172, Collingwood
Since their speciality is roasting and educating the public about coffee, they also provide a delicious all-day breakfast menu, smoothies, fresh juices and single estate tea, handcrafted pastries, and creative lunch options. We provide cold brew in a variety of methods, including the V60, Aeropress, and espresso.
There's a fancy coffee shop with two stories and cutting-edge basement doors not far away. Black coffee, a coffee brew similar to an ale, and free cupping sessions are all available at Aunty Peg's, which also functions as a roasting house, coffee bar, and retail store.
FAQs About Melbourne Cafes
There are plenty of excellent cafes all over Melbourne; however, some of the bests are located southeast of the city in trendy suburbs like Prahran, South Yarra, St Kilda, and Windsor.
Higher Ground and Cumulus Inc. are two of the best cafes in the Melbourne CBD. Higher Ground is from the same team that runs Top Paddock and The Kettle Black, while Cumulus Inc. is a busy social hub with a seasonal menu.
At the end of the financial year 2020, there were 44,679 cafés and restaurants in Australia. The number of cafés and restaurants in Australia has increased steadily from around 41,500 businesses in 2017.
Australian coffee culture developed from cafés owned by Greek and Italian migrants, slowly brewing from the post-war immigration boom in the 1950s and 1960s to becoming a nationwide obsession that is now part of Australia's cultural identity.
In March of 2016, Melbourne took its coffee love to new heights when it hosted the International Coffee Expo at the Melbourne Showgrounds. Some people even believe that Melbourne doesn't just have the best coffee in the country – it's also the coffee capital of the WORLD, at least as far as quality is concerned.
Wide Open Road
Where: Barkly Street, Brunswick, 274
Subculture of "hipster chic" Converted from a 1950s warehouse, the Wide Open Road coffee roastery, The aesthetic of the lab and the café is decidedly modern industrial with paste-up graffiti art everywhere. Just as you'd expect from Melbourne. The in-house mix at Bathysphere should be sipped neat. Here you can eat some of Melbourne's most creative café fare while watching coffee being roasted behind plexiglass.
Dukes Coffee Roasters
Where: 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Dukes Coffee Roasters, a cosy cafe with light wood panelling on Flinders Lane's Ross House, is known for its seasonal, ethically traded coffee beans sourced directly from farmers and cooperatives throughout the globe. Beans and brewing equipment may be purchased with your morning pour-over brew at this café, which also serves espresso and filter coffee made from single-origin and blended beans.
Seven Seeds
Where: Berkeley Street, 114, Carlton
Seven Seeds is a micro-roaster that brings in seasonal coffee from all around the world. In the 17th century, the Sufi Baba Budan stole seven thriving coffee seedlings out of Yemen and into India, thus the name. Coffee industry veterans now run ST ALi as its owners. The little on-site café serves some of the best coffee in Melbourne, along with a simple but delicious menu.
Code Black
Where: Weston Street, Brunswick, 15–17
Code Black's menu back states, in tiny print, which is a perfect summation of the restaurant's vibe. Incredibly high-quality coffee, with a ridiculously high-quality stone and metal interior design. Code Black serves as both a training for experts and a meeting place for coffee snobs. Black and milk coffees are always made using the house blend, while the single origin coffee is rotated often.
Auction Rooms
Where: North Melbourne, 103-107 Errol Street
The Auction Rooms, a small coffee roastery and café located in the vast, post-industrial building that formerly housed the WB Ellis auction house, meets all the criteria. The coffee beans are roasted at a different location, Small Batch Roasting Company, and are used to make superb espresso and a variety of other coffee drinks, as well as a unique menu that includes some of the best breakfast eggs you'll ever have. On sunny Melbourne mornings, you may enjoy the fresh air while sitting at one of the outside tables.
Market Lane
Where: 163 Commercial Road in South Yarra, in Shop 13 of the Prahran Market.
The Prahran Market roastery and café, Market Lane, serves up delicious coffees with a focus on their unique single-origin flavours. Cookies, muffins, muesli, and more are available to eat with your espresso or pour-over coffee.
In addition to selling single-estate coffee beans and brewing equipment, the shop also hosts free public cuppings (tastings) and workshops on how to make coffee using a pour-over, AeroPress, or plunger. Other locations include the Queen Victoria Market, Carlton, and two spots in the heart of the city.
Padre Coffee
Where: Brunswick East, 438 Lygon St.
Padre Coffee, whose green coffee comes from thirty various estates throughout the globe, does all of its roasting at the Brunswick East Project. Sit back with your specialty brew and peruse the assortment of coffee tools before choosing whether or not to enrol in a barista course. In addition to the League of Honest Coffee in the downtown area, Padre also has locations in the Royal Arcade, at Queen Victoria Market and at South Melbourne Market.
Industry Beans
Where: Rose Street, Fitzroy, 3/62
The fashionable Fitzroy neighbourhood is home to the coffee roastery, brew bar and restaurant, Industry restaurant, and Beans, which is nestled in an open concept converted warehouse with edgy street art all around. Bee pollen curd, and wattleseed granola are just some of the seasonal brunch delicacies that are designed to showcase the roastery's beans and are almost too pretty to eat.
Neighbourhood Vibe
The greatest cafés in Melbourne are deeply ingrained in their neighbourhoods, serving food and attracting customers who reside in the immediate area.
Both Everyday Coffee and Proud Mary, both popular among the area's creative elite, are great options for anyone looking for a cup of filter coffee in a refurbished storefront in Collingwood.
Possibly The Kettle Black, which appears out of nowhere in a big, lacey terrace house with a contemporary apartment complex grafted on top; alternatively, St. Ali, the laneway building that eventually became the prototype warehouse café south of the Yarra.
Some hipsters with glasses and beards in Brunswick have turned a vacant corner shop into a bustling community hub. Near the junction of A Minor Place and the sidewalk, there are benches to rest on. The ancient post on the verandah was surrounded by chained dogs, and the tables inside were full.
Lady Bower Kitchen may be found among a row of renovated thrift stores on a rundown block in Reservoir. At the same time, a brother and sister in Kew transform their family-owned milk shop into Adeney Milk Bar, replete with a Synesso and a menu of traditional suburban breakfast and lunch fare.
Brunetti, a 24-hour café in Carlton that exemplifies New World Mediterranean style with its brass and marble detailing the rise of Melbourne's Italian community from the city's slums to its poshest neighbourhoods, is a must-visit. A new café has opened in Footscray, and it's created entirely out of shipping containers that have been set up on a manicured empty lot (Rudimentary). Likewise, fashionable cafes seem to be discreetly tucked away in all of Melbourne's famous laneways. You may find one of these cafes just about everywhere, from a station's basement or switchboard closet to an office lobby or the passageway behind St. Paul's Cathedral.
They Are Not All In Fitzroy.
Despite how it may feel at times. You may find excellent cafés in a wide variety of Melbourne neighbourhoods, from Gardenvale (Omar and the Marvellous Coffee Bird), Reservoir (hello again Lady Bower Kitchen) Werribee (Corinthians), Burwood (Foodrinkery), to Mordialloc (Hendriks), and beyond. If you provide excellent coffee, unique, delicious cuisine, and comfortable but unique places to enjoy them, people will come.
Not Only For Hipsters
Even if tight jeans and crop tops are all the rage right now, not everyone has the same aesthetic preferences in terms of their glasses or beards. A Roy Morgan poll from earlier this year found that 63% of Melburnians go out to cafes to sip coffee; clearly not all of us are hip young professionals or middle-aged ladies on their lunch break. It's possible to see dog walkers pushing Schnoodles, parents pushing strollers, Labradoodles, or poodles, and employees wearing lanyards and high-visibility clothes.
It's possible that in the middle of the day we're simply wasting time, getting together with old friends, participating in a family custom, taking the kids for a walk first thing in the morning, coming up with ideas for a new project, writing a thesis, etc. In Melbourne, you can do all of these things in a café.
The Communal Table
Examples of 21st-century Melbourne culture may include a large, low table designed for lying near to the ground, or a high table with chairs to match. One of the most prominent ways our cafés distinguish themselves as public places where anybody may join in for the price of a cup of coffee is via the use of the community table.
A cafe's communal tables contribute to an atmosphere where individuals may feel comfortable spending time alone in a public setting. It's up to you whether you want to bring a laptop, a book for the book club, or nothing at all. Our cafés' community tables are available free of charge at any time.
Startup Culture
Even while commerce is still at the heart of Melbourne's cafe culture, the local, personal vibe and the fact that many cafe owners are self-employed give these establishments a distinct identity. They are often energetic and young, which is reassuring since it shows that anybody with a good idea and some hard work can succeed in Melbourne.
Cafes enrich our experience of city life by providing a link to the neighbourhood that big box retailers and shopping centres can't match.
Brunch Is For Jerks.
We do not even know how many, like, white folks enjoying brunch on a Saturday afternoon We can live with, the Strokes' lead singer was quoted as saying last year in The New York Times.
Though The Guardian referred to it as "a manifestation of the lifeless suburban homogeneity that is inexorably colonising our metropolitan environs," brunch has been widely criticised. Brunch in Melbourne is a great way to try new cuisine without breaking the bank, and menus usually provide a lot of leeway.
Brunch, an hour or two spent catching up with friends, family, or simply oneself over coffee and a dish of french toast, smoked salmon and poached eggs, or a pulled-pork sandwich, is a little but delectable pleasure that we should all be given. Everyone may have a delicious brunch at one of Melbourne's many cafés.
Cuisine: Australian Cafe
As an Australian, you may be asked by foreigners, "What is Australian food like?" You could reply "pasta, sushi, pho, etc." if asked what you wanted to eat, but that would sound too general, "seafood" would be too vague, and "barbecues" would be too American (multicultural fusion).
Perhaps our national dish is poached eggs on top of an avocado smash sprinkled with Vegemite, dukkah, or a dash of lime and coriander. How about a brioche sandwich stuffed with pulled pork, bacon, and egg, or crayfish? What about perfect corn fritters, crunchy on the outside and tender in the middle? Australia-wide, the café fare of Melbourne is recognised for its egalitarian approach, casual atmosphere, and ease of preparation.
Filter Brews Everywhere.
Cafes in Melbourne are increasingly investing in batch brewers, and customers are increasingly ordering filter coffee. This is not a problem exclusive to the city itself. At Elsternwick's Glovers Station and Sandringham's Bluff Town, patrons linger over batch beers.
The lighter roasts that are chosen for specialty-grade beans are reflected in brews made using a filter coffee machine, which allows for more nuanced flavour than espresso. Easy filter brewing allows us to enjoy the fruity flavour without the sour aftertaste. Beers made with a filter are also fantastic with meals.
The next time you get a Mexican egg breakfast, request a cup of Colombian coffee to see whether the spicy sauce brings out any hidden flavours in the brew.
World Champion Baristas
Since 2008, when Dave Makin (now Axil Coffee) placed second, Melbourne baristas have done very well in the global championships. For example, Matt Perger finished third in 2011 and second in 2013, and he also won the filter brewers championship in 2012.
Over the course of four years (2011–13), Perger and Craig Simon took turns finishing first and second in the Australian championships. That's one reason why baristas come here from all across Australia and the rest of the globe.
The World's Best Coffee
An espresso tradition that dates back more than fifty years has emerged in Melbourne. As the saying goes, "It's not like the coffee in Italy," and that's because it's not. The Italians' preference for the same foods and drinks has not changed much. The inner-tube sweetness of the robusta added by Italian roasters still gives Italian espresso its signature flavour. Melburnians have strong preferences for 100% arabica coffee, and the brews in this city reflect those preferences.
Many Melbourne cafes provide filter-style brews and single-origin espresso, demonstrating the city's cutting-edge approach to sourcing, roasting, and brewing specialty coffee. CNN, Lifehack Huffington Post, and BBC Travel all name us among the top cities in the world to have a cup of coffee, but we already knew that.
The World Wants Some, Too.
The New York Times reported a year ago that a dozen cafés with Australian themes had opened in the city, making visitors to the Big Apple who were in possession of passports depicting kangaroos and emus feel quite at home. Diners in the United States aren't used to discovering cafés that provide original cuisine, premium drinks, and friendly service.
It seems to be modelled after Melbourne's cafés. The New York Times compared the café Brunswick in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood to "a French bistro" and "an English pub."
Cafes in New York City serving avocado toast and flat whites include Nick Stone's Bluestone Lane in Greenwich Village (he played Australian rules football) and Leon Unglik's Little Collins on Lexington Avenue (he practised law in Melbourne).
Something similar is happening throughout Europe. Two Australian cafes may be found in the City of Lights: Holybelly, managed by a couple who formerly worked at Market Lane and and Tuckshop, which specialises in long blacks and flat whites served with avocado and Vegemite on toast.
Pave, a café in Milan, has a huge communal table and reused couches. According to the store's proprietor, Luca Scanning, the Italian public took some time to warm up to the concept. Scanni worked as a writer in Melbourne for two separate stints, and it was during these times that she spent a lot of time in Fitzroy cafés, where she enjoyed "lazy breakfasts and lovely locations," that the idea for Pave first came to her.
Workshop Coffee, situated in London's Clerkenwell district, is reminiscent of a café in Melbourne, Australia, with its warm wood, exposed brick walls, and massive coffee roaster in the rear. Cult of Done is the name of Workshop's coffee blend, which was inspired by the company's departed business partner, St. Ali.
Prufrock, a hip cafe in Holborn, might have been plucked straight out of Collingwood, with its signature blue espresso cups, blackboard menu, and brew-bar meets-science-lab atmosphere.
Due to the large number of Singaporean students returning from study abroad in locations like Melbourne and Sydney, cafes like Common Man Coffee Roasters are prospering in Singapore.
If you're looking for a great Australian café, go no further than Melbourne.
Conclusion
Melbourne is well-known over the world for its devotion to the beverage. With more than 2,000 cafes, it's no surprise that it employs some of the best baristas in the world. Wonderful coffee and food can be found across Melbourne, from trendy cafés on Chapel Street to hidden nooks in the CBD and roasteries on the city's outskirts. Seasonal, fairly traded coffee beans are what set Dukes Coffee Roasters apart. At Seven Seeds, we're a micro-roaster specialising in seasonal sourcing coffee from across the globe.
Code Black is where coffee connoisseurs and specialists can network and learn from one another. Market Lane, a coffee roastery and café in Prahran Market, is known for its high-quality beverages, emphasising the distinctive single-origin flavours of its beans. The open concept converted warehouse that now houses the coffee roastery, brew bar, and restaurant Beans can be found in the Fitzroy neighbourhood and the restaurant Industry. Cafés may be everywhere, from the depths of a train station to the alley behind St. Paul's Cathedral. Several Melbourne neighbourhoods, maybe even your own, may be home to a fantastic café.
According to a Roy Morgan survey, 63 per cent of Melburnians drink coffee when out and about. To purchase a cup of coffee, anybody may join the conversation at one of Melbourne's cafés. The cafe's communal tables help create an environment where people feel safe spending time alone. Melbourne's brunches are a cheap and delicious opportunity to sample the city's diverse culinary scene. Filter coffee is becoming more popular, and cafes in Melbourne are responding by purchasing batch brewers.
Many Melburnians choose filter-style brews that use just 100% arabica beans. The simple process of filter brewing removes any sourness from the fruity flavour. New York, London, and Singapore all have a healthy population of cafés with an Australian motif. In Milan, you may eat at Pave, which has shared seating and repurposed sofas, or at Holybelly or Tuckshop, which serve avocado and Vegemite on toast, respectively.
Content Summary
- Refugees from Italy and Greece who arrived in Melbourne during World War II spawned a coffee culture that has now become an art form.
- The city's cafe proprietors get their unusual single-origin blends from the top coffee-growing regions across the globe.
- Melbourne's coffee and cafe culture are so well-known that the city has become synonymous with them.
- You may limit your selections by perusing our list of the top cafés in Melbourne to visit in 2018.
- Melbourne's love of coffee has earned it international renown.
- Some of the top baristas in the world may be found working in its over 2,000 cafes.
- Subculture of "hipster chic" Converted from a 1950s warehouse, the Wide Open Road coffee roastery. The aesthetic of the lab and the café is decidedly modern industrial, with paste-up graffiti art everywhere.
- Where: 247 Flinders Lane, MelbourneDukes Coffee Roasters, a cosy cafe with light wood panelling on Flinders Lane's Ross House, is known for its seasonal, ethically traded coffee beans sourced directly from farmers and cooperatives throughout the globe.
- The little on-site café serves some of the best coffee in Melbourne, along with a simple but delicious menu.
- Code Black serves as training for experts and a meeting place for coffee snobs.
- The Prahran Market roastery and café, Market Lane, serves delicious coffees with a focus on their unique single-origin flavours.
- Where: Brunswick East, 438 Lygon St.Padre Coffee, whose green coffee comes from thirty various estates throughout the globe, does all of its roastings at the Brunswick East Project.
- The greatest cafés in Melbourne are deeply ingrained in their neighbourhoods, serving food and attracting customers who reside in the immediate area.
- Everyday Coffee and Proud Mary, popular among the area's creative elite, are great options for anyone looking for a cup of filter coffee in a refurbished storefront in Collingwood.
- Some hipsters with glasses and beards in Brunswick have turned a vacant corner shop into a bustling community hub.
- Brunetti, a 24-hour café in Carlton that exemplifies New World Mediterranean style with its brass and marble detailing the rise of Melbourne's Italian community from the city's slums to its poshest neighbourhoods, is a must-visit.
- Likewise, fashionable cafes seem to be discreetly tucked away in Melbourne's famous laneways.
- People will come if you provide excellent coffee, unique, delicious cuisine, and comfortable but unique places to enjoy them.
- A Roy Morgan poll from earlier this year found that 63% of Melburnians go out to cafes to sip coffee; not all of us are hip young professionals or middle-aged ladies on their lunch break.
- One of the most prominent ways our cafés distinguish themselves as public places where anybody may join in for the price of a cup of coffee is via the use of the community table.
- Our cafés' community tables are available free of charge at any time.
- While commerce is still at the heart of Melbourne's cafe culture, the local, personal vibe and the fact that many cafe owners are self-employed give these establishments a distinct identity.
- Cafes enrich our experience of city life by providing a link to the neighbourhood that big box retailers and shopping centres can't match.
- Brunch in Melbourne is a great way to try new cuisine without breaking the bank, and menus usually provide a lot of leeways.
- Everyone may have a delicious brunch at one of Melbourne's many cafés.
- Australia-wide, the café fare of Melbourne is recognised for its egalitarian approach, casual atmosphere, and ease of preparation.
- Cafes in Melbourne are increasingly investing in batch brewers, and customers are increasingly ordering filter coffee.
- Since 2008, when Dave Makin (now Axil Coffee) placed second, Melbourne baristas have done very well in the global championships.
- An espresso tradition that dates back more than fifty years has emerged in Melbourne.
- As the saying goes, "It's not like the coffee in Italy," and that's because it's not.
- Melburnians have strong preferences for 100% arabica coffee, and the brews in this city reflect those preferences.
- The New York Times reported a year ago that a dozen cafés with Australian themes had opened in the city, making visitors to the Big Apple who were in possession of passports depicting kangaroos and emus feel quite at home.
- Diners in the United States aren't used to discovering cafés that provide authentic cuisine, premium drinks, and friendly service.
- It seems to be modelled after Melbourne's cafés.
- The New York Times compared the café Brunswick in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood to "a French bistro" and "an English pub.
- Two Australian cafes may be found in the City of Lights: Holybelly, managed by a couple who formerly worked at Market Lane and Tuckshop, which specialises in long blacks and flat whites served with avocado and Vegemite on toast.
- Pave, a café in Milan has a huge communal table and reused couches.
- Workshop Coffee, situated in London's Clerkenwell district, is reminiscent of a café in Melbourne, Australia, with its warm wood, exposed brick walls, and massive coffee roaster in the rear.
