1. Brother Baba Budan - 359 Little Bourke St, Melbourne 2. St Ali - 16-18 Yarra Place, South Melbourne 3. Atomica Caffe - 268 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 4. The Maling Room - Corner Maling and Canterbury Roads 5. Auction Rooms - 103-107 Errol St, North Melbourne 6. Batch Espresso - 320 Carlisle Street, Balaclava 7. First Pour - 26 Bond Street, Abbotsford
Others worth mentioning...
Cafe Icoco - 143 Victoria St, Albert Park
...and others that get mentioned a lot on these forums, but I haven't been to yet...
Octane (I'll leave it up to you to look this one up... but I think there's one in the GPO and McKillop St in the city) Cafenatics (I've never had a great coffee here, but apparently there's more than one.. maybe I've been to the wrong one) Gattaca (..somewhere in Balaclava) and a place called Liar Liar (...somewhere on Glenferrie Rd, I think) gets good reviews...
I might have missed a few, but I tend to stick to the top few on my list... and don't venture out much more than that...
Though there are so many more out there, check out carlisle st (backlava) which has a fantastic cafe stretch of so many fantastic coffees. Aslo St Ali and a minor place are fantastic.
The other two places I should have mentioned would be 7 Grams and A Minor Place.
Don't drink coffee at Pelegrinis. It's a pretty cool looking place - very old school, but so's the coffee... Stay clear of Degraves Espresso or anywhere down Degraves St. Do have a wander down Degraves St and all the other laneways in the area... but pop into Jungle Juice (20 Centre Place) if you really need a coffee.
Along with Pelegrinis or Degraves St, people in Melbourne will probably point you towards Lygon St and Brunettis. Brunettis gets nothing but criticism on this forum, and for a good reason. Apparently the cakes are 'great' there, but that's not my thing. The coffee is horrible.
I am just about to leave for Melbourne from Auckland International, just jumped on to see if I got any love from you guys and it looks as though this weekend should have some good coffee drinking.
Definately keen to try out the clover + cupping session at BBB as well as all the other coffee houses around.
Thanks for the pointers in the right direction. I hope my first tastes of Aussie coffee is as good as I have heard.
DamonTarlaei Senior Member Joined: 6 Oct 2006 Posts: 34 Location: NZ Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Sat Jul 12, 2008, 6:46pm Subject: Re: Coffee in Melboure
Well, I am in the airport now, soon to get on the plane to go back to Godzone.
Well, I didn't get to many of the coffee shops on the list, in fact I had far less coffee than I was expecting. Walking the length of Little Bourke St twice before finding BBB was definately a part of that. It was definately worth it though, with one of the best ristretti I have ever had rewarding my extensive search. In hindsight, I should have had the clover before having the ristretto, but never the less, both were fantastic cups of coffee.
I did (out of necessity) go to brunetti's for my first cup of coffee. I think that the general opinion on the forum is correct. With 2* 4 group head machines + 3 * big grinders, and a dedicated barista, I thought that people here may have been being a little snobbish. After ordering a double ristretto, and being given an espresso (maybe my kiwi accent is a little strong?) which was pulled fast and had some evidence of chanelling, I was disappointed. It did however give me a chance to find the street name (though foolishly not the number) of BBB.
It took a bit of finding, as they don't have the kind of street signage as Brunetti. That did not in any way mean a lack of customers (quite the opposite, as I inadvertantly timed it with the lunchtime coffee rush). I then got a ristretto as good as any I have ever had, beautiful, balanced, full flavour, and sweet, right the way through the cup, fantastic aftertaste. And this was done in the middle of a busy time. Full marks from me. Awesomely friendly staff who pointed me in the direction of two more good cafe's (pity I couldn't find the first on Errol St, and didn't have enough time to get to Liar Liar).
Went there the next day with my mum and had another two ristretti and she had a trim flat white (or skinny FW). She was blown away as well.
Beyond that, had a couple of unexceptional coffees, that still managed to be above average (in Auckland at least).
The other notable place I went to, was Koko Black, for a fantastic hot chocolate (apparently we were there just after they had opened having just renovated, absolutely awesome) plus yummy yummy chocolates.
Overall, a fantastic experience and I absolutely loved Melbourne and will definately come back for a dedicated week long cafe/shop/chocolate crawl with a couple of my like minded mates.
Cheers for the great advice on cafes, and I am just sorry that I didn't manage to get to as many of them as I would have liked. There will definately be a next time though.
Mike
*edit - I would also like to say that the coffee I had in Melbourne more than made up for the disappointment and frustrations that I had the night before I went over when I opened the box with my coffee machine in it, just after having it couriered out to me after being serviced, and finding that it had been dropped and my dear Ariette Caffe Italia had been smashed into pieces (I will put some photos up). RIP dear coffee machine. Perfect excuse for an upgrade. Due to delays getting it serviced (two months) and my inaction before that (1 month) I haven't had my own coffee for a long time, and now it will be longer. Cheers Melbourne and BBB for putting that out of my mind
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