Where is the best specialty coffee in Cape Town?

Remembrew lists 30 hand-picked specialty cafés in Cape Town, South Africa. Standouts include Coco Safar (Sea Point), Espresso Lab Microroasters, Origin Coffee Roasting, Pauline's. The densest neighborhoods for coffee are CBD. Every café is chosen for the quality of its coffee, never for payment, so the list reflects the scene rather than who paid to appear.

How many specialty cafés does Cape Town have?

Remembrew tracks 30 specialty cafés in Cape Town that clear our bar for coffee quality. The count reflects the real depth of the local scene rather than a fixed quota, and we add cafés as we verify them.

Which Cape Town neighborhoods are best for coffee?

In Cape Town, the neighborhoods with the most hand-picked specialty cafés are CBD (7). Each has its own page on Remembrew with the full list and a map.

Does Remembrew take payment to list a café in Cape Town?

No. Remembrew is an independent directory and never accepts payment for a listing or for placement. Cafés appear only because they clear our specialty-coffee bar, and you can read the full criteria on our directory standards page.

Remembrew

Waitlist

Cape Town, by the cup

South Africa · 30 hand-picked cafés

Cape Town is one of the world's most consequential specialty coffee cities, a place where the third wave did not merely arrive but took root and transformed the industry across a continent. The story begins at Origin Coffee Roasting in De Waterkant, founded in 2006, whose alumni went on to launch Rosetta Roastery, Tribe Coffee, and Espresso Lab, three of the city's defining names. Today Espresso Lab holds the title of best coffee shop in Africa and 11th best in the world according to the 2025 World's 100 Best Coffee Shops ranking, while Truth Coffee Roasting remains a global icon for its steampunk Victorian roastery on Buitenkant Street.

The cafe landscape stretches from the CBD's tightly packed coffee bars on Church Street and Bree Street to the Old Biscuit Mill complex in Woodstock, where Espresso Lab and The Artisan Baker share a food-and-coffee destination of genuine international standing. Sea Point's coastline hosts the luxury precision of Coco Safar alongside Pauline's stand-up bar and Bootlegger's neighbourhood anchor, while Observatory and Kalk Bay each sustain their own cafe cultures rooted in community rather than spectacle.

Where Cape Town consistently earns global recognition is in its technical seriousness: single-origin sourcing, multi-method brew bars, and a culture of barista training that flows from roastery to retail. Bean There, the continent's first certified Fairtrade roaster, adds an ethical dimension that goes beyond the cup, and the merger of Origin, Truth and Tribe into a single group in 2023 signals an industry mature enough to consolidate without losing its character.

Cape Town, by the cup

Browse Cape Town by vibe

By neighborhood

Coco Safar (Sea Point)

Espresso Lab Microroasters

Origin Coffee Roasting

Pauline's

Rosetta Roastery (Bree Street)

Truth Coffee Roasting

Ground Art Caffe

Ground Zero Cafe

Haas Coffee Collective

SALT Kalk Bay

Bean There Coffee Roastery

Honest Chocolate Cafe

Olympia Cafe and Bakery

Sonder Cafe

Tribe Coffee Roasting

Woodstock Bakery

Yours Truly (Kloof Street)

Bootlegger Ndabeni Roastery

Bootlegger Coffee Company (Sea Point)

Coco Safar (V&A Waterfront)

Deluxe Coffeeworks (Bo-Kaap)

Deluxe Coffeeworks (Church Street)

Loading Bay

Origin Coffee Roasting (Gardens)

Origin Coffee Roasting (Green Point)

Rosetta Roastery (Claremont)

Rosetta Roastery (Silo District)

Shift Espresso Bar

The Artisan Baker (Old Biscuit Mill)

Tribe Coffee (CBD)

Cape Town on the map

Track your Cape Town cups in Remembrew.

Cape Town coffee, answered

The weekly bean drop