Best cafes and coffee in Melbourne

Melbourne invented Australian cafe culture, and its status as the national benchmark for espresso quality, cafe design, and brunch culture is not marketing — it is the verifiable result of the Italian migration that created the espresso bar culture of the 1950s, the Greek migration that created the all-day neighbourhood cafe, and the third-wave specialty coffee movement that Melbourne adopted and developed a decade ahead of the other capitals.

Proud Mary, Collingwood — the Collingwood cafe and roastery has been one of Australia's most influential specialty coffee establishments since its 2009 founding, with the direct-trade sourcing, the in-house roasting, and the brunch menu that has been replicated (rarely matched) across the country. The queue on Saturday morning is the truest measure of the cafe's reputation.

Brother Baba Budan, CBD — the 40-seat CBD cafe on Little Bourke Street (the chairs hanging from the ceiling) is the most instagrammed interior in Melbourne's cafe scene and a genuinely excellent espresso bar that the Seven Seeds group operates as the compact CBD counterpart to its Carlton roastery.

Lune Croissanterie, Fitzroy — the glass-walled pastry kitchen where the croissants are produced in the temperature-controlled environment is a cafe experience unique in Australia: the croissant quality is genuinely world-class (the New York Times described them as "possibly the finest croissants outside of France") and the queue management requires strategy.

Market Lane Coffee — the multi-site Melbourne specialty roaster with locations in Prahran Market, Carlton, and the CBD has set the standard for specialty coffee retail transparency (single origin, full traceability) and the cafe experience that the specialty coffee consumer expects from a roaster that sells to restaurants and cafes across Australia.

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