3 days ago
These 12 cafes are all-star all-rounders, nailing the vibe, food and drinks, every time
Great service. Impeccable food. Unimpeachable coffee. Abundant natural light. Architectural appointments. Modest prices. It feels like too much to ask, but if there's ever been a city where you can reasonably expect to have it all in a single cafe, it's the one that rhymes with Shellbourne.
These are the all-rounders in Good Food's Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025, presented by T2. This guide celebrates the people and places that shape our excellent cafe and bakery scenes and includes more than 100 venues reviewed anonymously across 10 categories, including icons, those best for food, tea, coffee and matcha, and where to get the city's best sweets, sandwiches and baked goods. These reviews also live on the Good Food app, within a collection and discoverable on the map.
Elster
Carefully walking the line between cafe and restaurant is what Elster does best. It's a cafe insofar as you can have a flat white and a granola or chicken sandwich. But it's a restaurant in that your cereal comes with bruleed pink grapefruit, and your sandwich layers crumbed buttermilk-brined chook and oozy dill tartare between squishy milk bread.
