Where to Find the Best Breakfast in Melbourne's CBD

Located at the Southern Cross end of Little Bourke Street, Higher Ground is from the team behind quintessential Melbourne cafes Top Paddock and The Kettle Black — and boy is it a beauty, a huge, high-ceilinged 160-seat venue set in a heritage-listed powerhouse.

Higher Ground serves the type of superb cafe fare that its two siblings are known for, with an all-day menu including the likes of the avocado pretzel, always popular spanner crab benedict, and a particularly good chilli scrambled eggs served with a smoked yoghurt. Also, the famous Top Paddock blueberry and ricotta hotcakes made the menu when it first opened and has kept a spot on the call sheet ever since.

Rustica is far more than your usual bakery. Yes, these folks bash out some damn fine bread, but its breakfast and lunch game is just as strong — if not better. Enjoy sourdough bread in its purest form with a slice of fruit, white or seeded toast, or dive into the more complex creations.

When getting the sautéed field mushrooms on crispy polenta, we tend to add a cheeky side of hollandaise for $3, or we keep it classic with the chill scrambled eggs. You can also really treat yourself to Rustica’s decadent, seafood-packed lobster and prawn benedict with crispy potatoes if you need some serious fuel ahead of a big day on the tools.

For those in demanding jobs, it can be difficult to get your brain moving in the morning. If you think surrounding yourself with suspended bookshelves and pillars filled with pot plants will get things going, head down Flinders Lane to Journal.

Simplicity is key at this long-standing Melbourne cafe, which serves a menu centred on classic breakfast items like pastries, fried eggs and well-crafted toasties. There’s Italian coffee, fresh juices and even a handful of cocktails to match. Plus, you can pick up wifi from the nearby City Library.

Long-running Hardware Street cafe Hardware Societe became so popular it had to expand to a second venue in the CBD. The newer 255-square-metre sibling site off Flinders Lane promises a grander space and shorter queues.

Here, a well-rounded menu of creative brunch fare boasts something to tickle just about everyone’s morning craving. Give the duck a l’orange benedict a try, tuck into lush baked eggs with fresh baguette, or start your day with the fried brioche with seasonal compote.

Image: Peter Tarasiuk.

The hanging foliage and whitewashed brick walls of Manchester Press are a sight for sore eyes on an early morning visit. This cavernous laneway cafe usually sings with a hum of happy people plunked on retro school chairs, enjoying their specialty coffees by Ona and bites from the bagel-focused menu.

The food offering is centred around open and closed bagels, of both the sweet and savoury variety. Try crafty combinations like bacon, maple and banana, or sweeten things up with the honey and ricotta number — or take those tastebuds on a trip to the Big Apple by way of a classic New York lox bagel. There was no way this longstanding and always buzzy cafe was not going to make it on the list of the best breakfast spots in Melbourne’s CBD.

Image: Visit Victoria.

It spent almost 100 years of its life as a dry venue, but the beer’s flowing freely now at The Victoria Hotel, as it enters its next phase as Mister Munro. The historic Little Collins Street pub has been reimagined as a dapper dining room and bar, named in a nod to former Victorian Premier and temperance advocate, James Munro.

It’s also now home to some of the best breakfast in Melbourne’s CBD. You can come in for your classic bircher muesli, buttermilk pancakes and mushroom omelette, but we’re obsessed with its daily breakfast buffet. For only $32, you can keep filling up your plate with as many breakfast goodies as you like, and not stop until you’re totally full.

If your weekday mornings are spent somewhere a little more corporate, Liminal might be the perfect multi-functional space for you to fuel up at before popping off to work. Located in the foyer of Collins Street’s T&G Building, this daytime diner has become a favourite for the hungry AM crowd.

Admire stretches of marble and lounge on comfy contemporary couches while you enjoy a wide range of brekkie staples. Menu highlights include the avocado on toast with fennel, grapefruit, endives and chilli oil; the moreish sausage and egg muffin; its breakfast roll with bacon, a fried egg, hash brown and secret sauce; and the breakfast platter with soft-boiled eggs, labneh, smoked trout, pickles and spiced carrots. The venue also serves as a wine store, event space and marketplace. Tick, tick, tick.

Image: Carmen Zammit.

Tucked down a CBD lane in a stunning heritage-listed building on Wills Street (just off LaTrobe) in a pocket of the city that’s usually reserved for business only, everything about Operator25 is unassuming. And from the minute you step in you can tell it’s all business here, from the crisp interior design and outstanding coffee, to the polished brunch and lunch menu that’s one of the best in the Hoddle Grid.

You can drop by for simple eggs your own way or a few slices of toast with condiments, but be sure to explore the bigger bites when you have time to treat yourself to a proper Melbourne CBD breakfast. The black rice porridge with salted coconut cream, banana, poached strawberries, coconut cinnamon whipped cream is a winner during winter, the cumin- and coriander-accented tofu scramble will convert even the most stubborn of carnivores, the kimchi fritters with a sweet corn purée and a poached egg have just the right kick of spice, and the char siu pork benedict will keep your belly full well into the arvo.

Chicken and waffles might sound indulgent as a breakfast dish, but sometimes it’s necessary. Bowery to Williamsburg’s take on the southern classic will sort you out, whether you’re a little dusty, had a large morning workout or simply feel like treating yourself.

An illuminated subway sign welcomes diners into the laneway eatery, paying homage to the subway stations of New York. And similarly, menu options like bagels (both filled or with your choice of schmear), lox and potato latkes and loaded deli sandwiches will instantly transport you to a New York deli, as will the bottomless filter coffee. If you’re dining in at this busy Melbourne CBD breakfast joint, your top-notch Padre coffee is served with a Hershey’s Kiss.

Located in a section of the State Library that had been closed for more than 15 years, Guild Cafe opened in 2018 as part of the historic venue’s extensive refurbishment. Run by the minds behind Almond Milk Co, the cafe resides just inside the Library’s Russell Street entrance.

It offers a short but sweet menu, with The Hamptons Bakery pastries starring alongside breakfast options that might include the likes of granola with mint coconut yoghurt, and a vegan ramen featuring nori and pickled ginger. With lots of communal tables, big windows, ample light and an all-day filter coffee pass, this is the perfect nook to have breakfast in Melbourne’s city centre. Moreover, the spot is one of Melbourne’s few laptop-friendly cafes, so feel free to work and eat here throughout the day.

The bottom part of Flinders Lane is often overshadowed by its significantly more impressive top end. However, tucked down there is The Grain Store, a spacious breakfast spot offering homey, substantial brunch dishes starring fresh ingredients.

The vibe at The Grain Store is exactly what it sounds like, and the space itself is reminiscent of a farmhouse. Behind the barn doors, you’ll find a breakfast brioche filled with scrambled eggs, smoked mozzarella, avocado and potato hash; lobster benedict with gruyere rarebit, avocado and sweet pickled fennel; french toast with brûlée banana, seasonal berries, coconut dulce de leche and ice cream; and a regularly changing breakfast board piled high with lots of little brekkie bits.

A playful space featuring navy accents and dreamy pink terrazzo, and nestled within the 80 Collins precinct, Maverick is a vibrant modern cafe from the minds behind Richmond’s Mayday Coffee & Food. Here, you can settle in over specialty coffee by Axil and pastries from Richmond’s Penny for Pound, or a taste of the kitchen’s creative seasonal breakfast fare.

Early mornings are made all the more palatable with the likes of cured ocean trout with soft eggs and a horseradish creme fraiche, or the house-made pastrami benedict featuring lashings of bearnaise sauce. Or, treat that sweet tooth to ricotta hotcakes, topped with crispy bacon, butter and pure maple.

Since opening in 2010, Brown Bagels has been hitting the sweet spot between newfangled experimental and bare-bones tradition. Brown’s sweet and savoury bagels — such as strawberry and Nutella, banana and honey and salmon and cream cheese — are comforting and familiar. But as you go into the more lunch-like bagels, things get a little more experimental — beef bulgogi bagel, anyone?

Find this hidden gem, one of Melbourne’s best bagel joints, tucked down Equitable Place — an alleyway in the city that fills with office workers searching for a great lunch or breakfast in the CBD.

We’ve excluded coffee shops that only serve a few token pastries and takeaway rolls from this list, but Vacation is a more than worthy exception. And we say that because it goes beyond just one or two small breakfast offerings, and there is a decent amount of space to dine in.

Coffee is, of course, why most people visit, but the cafe also has a tight menu of muesli, toast and sandwiches. Whenever we visit, we gun straight for the morning brioche bun that’s packed with harissa, grilled haloumi, tomatoes, and a fried egg. The egg and bacon butty is also a winner.