Coffee Journal
All 50 coffee shops

City guide

The best coffee shops in Cape Town

Cape Town·5 shops covered·Updated August 2026

Cape Town is the reason people overseas know South Africa has a coffee scene at all. It has the oldest third-wave roastery still trading, the shop that a British newspaper once called the best on the planet, and a density of good espresso in the CBD that no other South African city comes close to matching.

What follows is the Cape Town section of our national list of fifty coffee shops. I have not sat in every one of these rooms, and I am not going to pretend otherwise — I am an amateur with a Breville and an opinion, not a travelling critic on expenses. What I can do is tell you exactly why each of these places earned a spot, what the people who have been there consistently say, and what to order so your first visit is not wasted on a drink that tells you nothing.

One thing worth saying up front: almost every shop on this Cape Town list is a roastery as well as a café. That is unusual internationally and it is the single most useful fact about drinking coffee here. It means the person handing you a flat white can generally tell you the roast date, the farm and why they bought that lot. Ask them.

The Cape Town shops on our list

Ordered as they appear on our national list. Ranking here reflects how strongly each shop earned a place on a fifty-shop national list rather than a claim that number one pours a better cup than number four — they are doing genuinely different things.

  1. 1

    Truth Coffee Roasting

    Cape Town·Roastery + Café

    Brass, gears, leather and a roaster running like a Victorian time machine — the café The Telegraph once called the best on the planet.

    Truth Coffee Roasting coffee shop in Cape Town
    The coffee
    Serves a range of meticulously crafted espresso and pour-over drinks. Known for single-origin coffees served at the iconic copper bar.
    The room
    Steampunk-themed industrial warehouse with brass pipes, leather seating, mechanical gears, and a dark moody atmosphere reminiscent of a Victorian workshop.
    Why it is worth the trip
    The entire space is a steampunk immersion — from the staff uniforms to the decor. Watch vintage roasting machinery in action while sipping your coffee.
    Order this: A single-origin pour-over at the copper bar. Espresso, PouroverVintage machinery

    I've stared at photos of that bar for a decade. I want to be there at 7am, before the queue, watching the city wake up.

    Full write-up →Their site
  2. 2

    Origin Coffee Roasting

    Cape Town·Roastery

    The shop that lit the fuse on Cape Town's third-wave scene back in 2005, with a barista academy that's trained thousands.

    Origin Coffee Roasting coffee shop in Cape Town
    The coffee
    Pioneered Cape Town's specialty coffee scene since 2005. Features a slow bar with rotating single-origin options. Known for expert barista training.
    The room
    Modern roastery space with an open-plan layout, natural light, and a professional slow bar setup.
    Why it is worth the trip
    Home to a barista academy that has trained thousands. The slow bar rotates coffees weekly, offering a constantly fresh experience.
    Order this: Whatever's on the slow bar that week. Pourover, Espresso, Slow bar

    You don't skip the place that started it all.

    Full write-up →Their site
  3. 3

    Rosetta Roastery

    Cape Town·Roastery

    Founded by guys from a metal band, and twice crowned "best coffee in South Africa."

    Rosetta Roastery coffee shop in Cape Town
    The coffee
    Twice crowned best coffee in South Africa (2018, 2019). Specialises in single-origin coffees with a progressive roasting style.
    The room
    Sun-filled courtyard setting with a minimalist aesthetic. Uses metallic stickers to categorise their coffee range.
    Why it is worth the trip
    Kyoto cold drip coffee traditionally served with a macaron. A metal-band origin story adds an unexpected edge.
    Order this: A Progressive-style single origin. Espresso, Pourover, Kyoto cold dripDiedrich IR, Kees van der Westen Mirage, Mazzer Super Jolly

    I want to taste what two national titles actually justify.

    Full write-up →
  4. 4

    Deluxe Coffeeworks

    Bo-Kaap, Cape Town·Roastery

    A hole-in-the-wall in the Bo-Kaap done up like a hotrod garage, DRUM Magazine covers on the walls.

    Deluxe Coffeeworks coffee shop in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town
    The coffee
    Signature house blend from Brazil, Guatemala, and Ethiopia. Regulars swear by the mocha.
    The room
    Hotrod garage aesthetic with a skater-cool atmosphere, bluegum bar counter, and DRUM Magazine covers on the walls. A tiny, character-packed space in the Bo-Kaap.
    Why it is worth the trip
    One of Cape Town's most distinctive espresso bars — tiny but full of personality. A hole-in-the-wall worth crossing the city for.
    Order this: The mocha — regulars swear it's unbeatable. EspressoGiesen W12, La Marzocco Vulcano, La Marzocco GB5

    The best cups are usually the smallest rooms.

    Full write-up →
  5. 5

    Tribe Coffee Roasting

    Woodstock, Cape Town·Roastery

    A collective of coffee pioneers tucked into the Woodstock Foundry's artisan arcade.

    Tribe Coffee Roasting coffee shop in Woodstock, Cape Town
    Order this: A straight espresso, to judge them honestly. Espresso

    Woodstock on a Saturday is its own reason.

    Full write-up →

Opening hours, addresses and prices move around constantly in South African hospitality, and I am one person with a day job rather than a listings company. Check the shop's own Instagram before you drive. If something here is out of date, tell me and I will fix it.

A one-morning Cape Town coffee walk

Trying to do five shops in a day is how you end up jittery and unable to taste anything. This is a realistic morning that covers the CBD on foot with one short drive at the end.

  1. 1

    Start early at Truth, before the queue

    Truth on Buitenkant Street is the busiest coffee room in the city by mid-morning and it is a very different experience empty. Get there at opening, take a single-origin pour-over at the copper bar, and give yourself time to actually look at the roaster. This is the one stop on the list where the building is as much of the point as the coffee.

  2. 2

    Walk up into the Bo-Kaap for Deluxe

    Twenty-odd minutes uphill and you are in a completely different Cape Town. Deluxe Coffeeworks is tiny, loud and built like a hotrod garage. Order the mocha — it is the one drink regulars there are genuinely evangelical about, and a mocha is normally the last thing a specialty shop is known for.

  3. 3

    Eat something. Seriously.

    Two shots of good espresso on an empty stomach in the Cape Town heat is how a coffee morning turns into a headache. Break here for an hour before the third stop, and drink some water. The Cape is dry and the caffeine is doing more than you think.

  4. 4

    Finish in Woodstock at Tribe

    A short drive or a train stop east and you are in Woodstock, at the Foundry. Order a straight espresso here rather than a milk drink — by this point in the morning your palate is calibrated, and a naked shot is the fairest test you can give a roaster.

  5. 5

    Buy beans at whichever one impressed you

    A cup lasts ten minutes; a 250 g bag lasts a fortnight. Whichever room you liked, buy a bag whole and grind it at home. Our grind size guide covers what to do with it once you are back in your kitchen.

Why Cape Town got there first

South African specialty coffee did not start in Johannesburg, where the money is, or in Pretoria, where the government is. It started in Cape Town, and the reason is mostly geography and tourism. The city has spent decades serving European and American visitors who arrived with expectations already set by Melbourne, London and Portland. A café that could not pull a decent flat white lost that customer to one that could.

Origin opened in 2005 and did the unglamorous work that made the rest possible: it trained baristas. Thousands of them, through an academy that is still running. When people talk about a city having a coffee scene rather than a few good coffee shops, that is what they mean — a labour pool deep enough that a new shop can hire someone who already knows what they are doing.

The second thing Cape Town had was room to be strange. Truth committed fully to a steampunk conceit — brass, gears, leather, staff in costume — in a way that would have read as absurd anywhere with a more conservative hospitality market. It worked, and it put a South African coffee shop on international lists for the first time. Rosetta was founded by people out of a metal band and went on to be named best coffee in South Africa twice. Deluxe looks like a garage and hangs DRUM Magazine covers on the walls.

That willingness to have a personality is, I think, the genuinely transferable lesson. The coffee in Johannesburg and Pretoria is now every bit as good. What Cape Town still does better than anywhere else is make the room worth sitting in.

What this guide is, and what it is not

I want to be plain about the limits here, because coffee writing is full of people pretending to more authority than they have. I am not a certified Q grader. I do not have a cupping table. My home setup is a Breville Barista Express and a Meraki, which is a decent amateur rig and nothing more than that.

So this page does not claim to rank Cape Town espresso by objective quality. What it does is collect, in one place, the shops that come up again and again from people whose judgement I trust, along with the specific detail that makes each one worth a visit rather than a generic five-star blur. Where I know something is contested — a shop that has changed hands, a claim that only holds for one drink — I say so.

There are also no affiliate links on this page, or anywhere on this site. Nobody paid to appear here and nobody can. If a shop drops off this list at some point, it will be because the coffee changed, not because a cheque did.

Hours, addresses and prices are the weakest part of any guide like this, mine included. South African hospitality moves fast, and load shedding still closes kitchens without notice. Treat everything here as a reason to go, and the shop's own Instagram as the source of truth for whether they are open today.

Shops or roasters — which page do you actually want?

This page is about places to sit down and drink coffee in Cape Town. If what you are really after is a bag of beans to take home, or you want to know who is roasting locally rather than who is pouring, that is a different guide. Our Cape Town roasters guide covers the roasteries, their house blends and where to buy from them directly. Plenty of names appear on both lists, because in South Africa the line between a roastery and a café is thinner than it is almost anywhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is the best coffee shop in Cape Town?
Truth Coffee Roasting takes most of the headlines, and The Telegraph named it the best coffee shop in the world back in 2016. But best depends on what you want. Truth is the spectacle. Origin is the one that started the scene. Deluxe Coffeeworks in the Bo-Kaap is the one locals actually walk to.
Where did Cape Town specialty coffee start?
Origin Coffee Roasting opened in 2005 and is generally credited with lighting the fuse on third-wave coffee in the city. Its barista academy has trained thousands of people who then went on to open or staff other shops. A great deal of the Cape Town scene traces back to that one room.
Can you walk between Cape Town coffee shops?
Several of them, yes. Truth on Buitenkant Street and Deluxe Coffeeworks in the Bo-Kaap are both comfortably inside the CBD and doable on foot in about twenty-five minutes. Tribe in Woodstock is a short drive or a train stop away. Plan two shops in a morning rather than five.
What should I order at a Cape Town roastery bar?
Ask what came off the roaster this week and order that as a filter or pour-over. Roastery-owned bars are the one place where the person serving you can actually answer that question. If you take milk, a flat white on the house blend is the honest benchmark for judging any shop.
Is Cape Town coffee expensive?
By South African standards, the Cape Town CBD sits at the upper end. By global standards it remains very good value, which is part of why the scene attracts so much international attention. Our price index tracks what beans actually cost across the country if you want the numbers rather than an impression.
How many coffee shops does this list cover?
Five in Cape Town proper, drawn from our national list of fifty. Stellenbosch and the winelands are counted separately because that is a different day out. The full fifty covers every province, and this page is the Cape Town slice of it.

Where to go next

Cape Town coffee roasters guide

Twenty-one roasters in and around the city, with trust scores, house blends and where to buy beans directly.

All 50 South African coffee shops

The full national list this page is drawn from, covering every province including the ones nobody writes about.

South African coffee price index

What a bag of specialty beans actually costs across the country, tracked in Rand rather than guessed at.

The Coffee Journal map

Every shop and roastery we cover, plotted, so you can see what is near you rather than near the CBD.

More from Coffee Journal

Brew Logger

Track your espresso shots, ratios, and dial-in progress.

Dial-In Guide

Diagnose sour, bitter, or channelling shots step by step.

Grind Size Guide

7 grind sizes, 20+ grinders, micron values for every brew method.

Water Quality Tool

SA tap & bottled water scored against the SCA standard.