This micro-roaster, cafe and retailer is hidden behind a wood-panelled door, which serves as a humble ruse for one of Melbourne’s most marvelled cafe creations. The team here is renowned for bringing the best and tastiest characteristics out of a bean, and it’s one of the few roasteries to cup what it roasts on a daily basis. There’s only one size for coffee here, purely so these craft masters can delicately balance your shot in proportion to water or milk that suits best.

If you look hard enough, you’ll find INI Studio hidden within what looks like a small garage on Queensberry Street. Minimalism is the name of the game here — that is, until you purchase some of its coffees. The team here roast their own beans, pumping out a decent selection of filter brews and perfectly pulled espresso shots. But we mostly love INI’s more unusual coffee creations. Our pick? Either the iced citrus long black or the rich cream iced latte.

Anyone who takes it upon themselves to ‘make coffee for the city that loves to drink it’ sets themselves up for a challenge. But it’s come as a walk in the park for Market Lane Coffee, which has established an enviable presence in Melbourne and, with it, has reeducated the public about what an excellent cup of coffee truly looks like. Since 2009, it has spread itself across the city with an arsenal based on creating an obscenely good product — from a humble lane at Prahran Market.

If you wander into Aunty Peg’s looking for a latte, you won’t find one. But rather than being turned away, you’ll be sat down at the bar. You’ll be talked through the coffee, perhaps given a taste or a smell (no obligation, of course). And before you know it, you’ll probably be sipping a nitrogen-charged cold brew straight out of a beer glass. That seems like standard practice at Aunty Peg’s, which opened back in 2014 to showcase and sell the best beans Proud Mary can find.

Small Batch's ethos centres around three vital pillars. Firstly, it must taste great. Secondly, it must have a positive social impact. And lastly, it has to support sustainable agriculture. Marvellously, it has achieved all this within its warehouse space in North Melbourne, where it also slings its own pastries and sells a heap of local produce. This hidden gem is easily one of the best Melbourne coffee spots.

Say what you want about Melbourne’s hyped-up cafe culture, but some things just work. And sometimes they work really well — at least, that’s the case of Proud Mary in Collingwood. Even though it opened way back in 2009, Proud Mary still continually has to manage customer lines out the front — even on weekdays. Since then, many cafes have opened (and closed), but this Collingwood fixture still stands tall and proud. A big part of this is its coffee, which is still some of the best in the city.

We all know Melburnians love coffee. It makes sense, then, that one of the best specialty roasters in the country opened a cafe in our fair city. The award-winning coffee company has a swag of popular Canberra cafes, plus one in Sydney that opened back in 2018 and opened a ‘coffee sanctuary’ in Brunswick back in 2020. Step inside the bright, minimalist interior and sit at the interactive coffee bar, and you’ll see that Ona Coffee Melbourne goes far beyond your standard cafe.

When you think about the beginnings of Melbourne’s third-wave coffee movement, it can likely be traced back to St Ali. Not just a boutique roaster of rich, cult-inducing coffee beans, St Ali was also something much more — an industrial-style cafe on a South Melbourne back street serving brunch that was as good as its brew. Despite the saturation of the city’s cafe scene and local coffee roasters providing stiff competition, St Ali has survived the movement to remain a Melbourne institution.

It’s been over eight years since Industry Beans launched its first coffee roastery and cafe in the backstreets of Fitzroy. It would quickly become a landmark of Australia’s coffee scene, growing to encompass a seven-strong stable of venues across Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. The current Fitzroy site houses a large dining space, an on-site coffee roastery and a dedicated retail area. The ever-innovative coffee menu is also ideal for those wanting to change up their usual coffee orders.

From the team behind A Minor Place, Wide Open Road on Brunswick’s Barkly Street offers much more than the unassuming shop front suggests. With the subtle signage and brick finish, the place comes to life as soon as you enter the door. On top of the cafe space, Wide Open Road has its own roastery, cupping room and green bean storage. While it focuses on creating beautiful roasts for its own cafe, it also sells retail to the general public and a handful of wholesale customers.

From its cosy flagship space on Flinders Lane, Dukes Coffee Roasters is championing specialty coffee with a conscience, focused on environmental and social sustainability as much as on the final drink. The team’s firm on its commitment to ethically traded and sourced coffee, with each lot of beans traceable back to the farm it came from. The Dukes blends are crafted from mostly organic beans sourced from across Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.

Patricia Coffee Brewers might seem simple on the surface, perhaps yet another Melbourne cafe crammed into a barely workable space. But look again. As one of the first spots in the city to charm drinkers with a tiny standing-room-only space, it’s the mixture of old-school allure and Melbourne sensibilities that has coffee lovers – literally – lining up outside the door every morning (and afternoon). The crew roast their own coffee, brewing into some of the best cups of joe in town.

Coffee savants may be able to smell the roasting of beans from Sydney Road, but the Code Black warehouse front doesn’t give as much away. The frosted sliding door may only be open a crack, and if there’s no one sipping a latte out front, passers-by may be forgiven for thinking it’s closed. But, inside, the place is big and bustling — like Wonka’s chocolate factory for the caffeine addicted. Opening back in 2013, it has constantly stayed towards the front of Melbourne’s roasting community pack.

Abbotsford’s Au79 may mostly be known for its banging brunch menu and freshly baked bread and pastries, but it also roasts some of the best coffee in Melbourne. Its signature Midas blend is served in cafes all over the city, but the ever-changing filter brews are mostly only found in its own cafe. And if you really fall for this coffee but don’t live or work in the area, be sure to check out Au79’s coffee subscription.

Behind the sleek and unassuming facade of Axil Coffee Roasters’ HQ in Hawthorn, you’ll find what can only be described as a quintessential ‘coffee barn’ for the city that lives and breathes coffee. A sizeable seating space for 75 is replete with a cupping room and a well-stocked retail selection of both beans and foodie equipment. Theatrical and buzzing but large enough to be personable and original, Axil built a thriving reputation within the coffee community in only a few short years.

Found in a small but charming storefront in West Melbourne, The Flour is a calm, inviting cafe that entices people with great French pastries and unique blends of coffee unlike any they’ve had before. The baristas pour all the love and time into crafting brew, with our favourite being the coffee sour. For this, baristas slowly pour the house filter blend and then chuck it into a soda stream to add some fizz. It’s then served on ice with a dash of fresh lemon juice and some blackcurrant juice.

Located on the corner of Flinders and Exhibition Street, this pastel pink cafe doubles as a retail outlet where customers can purchase coffee not just by the cup but by the bag. It’s also somewhere you can go for high-quality brews without being a qualified expert. The team are approachable and friendly about the coffee it roasts and serves. It isn’t just all coffee, though — the cafe also has a tight menu of muesli, toast and sandwiches.

Maker Coffee has been a part of the Melbourne coffee scene since 2015 and now has four locations across Melbourne (Richmond, Prahran, South Yarra and the CBD). It sources its beans from all over the world and focuses on sustainable and socially aware producers — a growing trend we love to see in the industry. Head to any of its smaller stores to sip on its extensive range of espressos and filter brews, or head to the main Richmond location for even more options and to chat with the roasters.

Born back in 2008, when Melbourne was just discovering its burgeoning coffee scene, Padre Coffee now has four locations across Australia, including two in Melbourne. It’s the Brunswick store that started it all, though, and to this day, it retains the excitement and heady atmosphere of those early days of coffee explorations. You can easily come in to simply order a quick coffee and be very happy. But we recommend you take your time, trying one of it's seasonal roasts.