If you look hard enough, you’ll find INI Studio hidden within what looks like a small garage on Queensberry Street that’s been painted white and decked out with white cube furniture. 

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, one in Sydney and another in Noosa. 

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). 

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. 

Located 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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Patricia Coffee Brewers might seem simple on the surface, perhaps yet another Melbourne cafe crammed into a barely workable space. But look again. 

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. 

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.

It’s been over eight years since Trevor and Steve Simmons launched their first Industry Beans coffee roastery and cafe in the backstreets of Fitzroy. It would quickly become a landmark of Australia’s coffee scene.

When you think about the beginnings of Melbourne’s third-wave coffee movement, it can probably be traced back to St Ali. Not just a boutique, local roaster of rich, cult-inducing coffee beans, St Ali was also something much more.

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.

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. 

The origin of Small Batch stems from Andrew Kelly, who’s best known for originally opening Auction Rooms in North Melbourne. He has since sold the business, but it was up there as one of the best cafes in Melbourne when he ran it.

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). 

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.

It’s easy to miss Seven Seeds on Berkeley Street, hidden in one of the quieter pockets of Carlton. 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 creations.