Melbourne Coffee Culture

Espresso arrived in Melbourne with Italian and Greek migration after the Second World War, and machines appeared in city cafes in the 1950s. What followed was a slow local drift away from the Italian model: milk drinks became the default, the flat white settled into its short, strong form, and a Melbourne-specific order called a magic, a double ristretto with steamed milk in a small cup, spread through the city. From the 2000s independent roasters took over, buying single-origin beans and running their own cafes. The result is a city where international chains have never dominated, where the laneways of the grid and the inner suburbs are dense with small roasters, and where ordering the wrong size is noticed.

What you actually see

• The laneway cafes - the narrow service lanes of the grid, filled with tables and roasting equipment.
• Single-origin roasting - cafes that roast on site and list farm and altitude on the menu.
• The flat white and the magic - the two local milk drinks that define the ordering vocabulary.
• The inner suburbs - Fitzroy, Carlton and Collingwood, where the density of small roasters is highest.

When to go

Cafes open early and many close by mid-afternoon, so this is a morning activity; a cafe still serving at five is unusual. Weekday mornings suit the working city; weekend brunch runs from about nine to two and queues form outside the popular places. Winter is the strongest season for it, simply because a warm cafe is where Melbourne spends its cold months.

Honest expectations

Prices have climbed and a basic coffee now costs more here than in most Australian cities. Service can be brisk to the point of curt at busy sites. The weekend brunch queues are long and rarely worth the wait for the food, which is the same avocado and eggs everywhere. Some cafes refuse to make certain drinks, which visitors read as snobbery, and it sometimes is.

Nearby

The laneways of the central grid, Queen Victoria Market and the Fitzroy shopping strips are all close together.