When Australians go overseas, it usually sparks a lightbulb moment: we take our morning routines seriously. While many other cities sleep, in Australia we’re seizing the day with run clubs and coffee, or stopping at our favourite cafe for babycinos and a shared croissant en route to school and work. Weekend brunch tables are booked well ahead. People’s devotion to their daily cafe visit borders on spiritual.

There are more than 100 of these cornerstones of our social lives gathered in Good Food’s Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries 2025, presented by T2 and published today. The 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 live on the Good Food app, and can be discovered on the map.

Skimming the list it’s clear that, even if cafes are quintessential, they’re far from standard-issue these days. Thick slabs of tamago (the firm Japanese omelette) are almost as likely as swirls of scrambled eggs. Rice and flatbread jostle for space with sourdough. Shades of purple, green and pink are seen in drinks and on pastries.

“Brunch and coffee have always been a significant part of Melbourne culture and the pride of every Melburnian,” says Tuan To, co-owner of Amara in Seddon, which he opened in April with a Vietnamese-skewed all-day menu.

“I thought why not bring [together] the two and create something new yet familiar.” Amara’s signature dish might be a steel pan of runny-yolked eggs with pâté, sweet stir-fried beef and pickles. The crusty baguette on the side can turn it into a banh mi-esque experience.

Our cafes and bakeries are the best place to witness a much bigger trend in food: third culture cooking. The term for the cuisine that grows out of the experience of living between two cultures – such as having Thai parents but being born in Australia – it’s already evident at Melbourne restaurants such as Anchovy and Askal, and cocktail bars like One or Two. But it’s set to explode. According to 2021 Census data, nearly half of all Australians have a parent born overseas, in countries as different as Vietnam, Italy and Sri Lanka.

Italian migrants planted the seeds of our cafe obsession: the first lever-style espresso machines were reported in Melbourne in 1954. Each new wave of arrivals since has broadened our horizons, whether through Greek-run milk bars, Taiwanese tea shops or Middle Eastern bakeries such as A1, still roaring most weekends in Brunswick.

Today, cafe tables hold just as many green drinks as caramel-toned coffees, but they’re no longer kale smoothies, it’s matcha. The powdered green tea has become a global sensation, outselling coffee at many cafes, going viral on social media and for the first time depleting stocks at centuries-old Japanese producers.

But it’s only one of the specialty drinks that have become as essential for cafes as lattes. Foams, sodas, butter-washed coffee and creams infused with fruit and flowers are now part of most baristas’ toolkits.

These new-wave drinks are repositioning visits to the cafe as a true occasion, especially among younger people who are widely reported to be drinking less alcohol.

“I think people are looking for more places to chill these days, especially younger people. It doesn’t have to be with alcohol but it can still be fun,” says Sean Then who runs Cafe Tomi in North Melbourne. He styled the venue on a Japanese listening bar, and has run evening events featuring even more elevated drinks than Tomi’s day-time offering. There’s even a “Cold Fashioned” made with butter-washed cold brew, maple and Japanese citrus.

With restaurants an ever more expensive proposition, it makes sense that cafes are stepping into the gap. Increasingly, cafes are also introducing dinner, such as The Age Good Food Guide’s Cafe of the Year, Moon Mart, in South Melbourne. From mid-June, Westgarth cafe Ophelia will do Tuesday pasta nights and weekend drinks with DJs; Carlton North’s ever-popular Florian has run evening services later in the week for more than two years.

“Our Friday nights are designed to feel welcoming and homely, says Florian co-owner Dom Gattermayr. “A true neighbourhood local where you can walk down and see what’s available that night.”

Approachability and affordability have always been key to Australian cafe culture, so why not take that sensibility to dining after dark? Offering alternative spaces to bars in which to socialise after work is also driving the day-to-night cafe boom.

In Glen Iris, Siora tiramisu bar, which opened in March with music and playing cards on tables, has attracted queues of everyone from 20-somethings to grandparents with their grandchildren.

“It doesn’t look like nonna’s house but it’s warm like that,” says Siora founder Jasmine Caruana. “It brings people together, people are laughing, they’re playing games. It’s more intimate than going to a Yo-Chi or a Piccolina.”

Caruana shares the space with AM Bakehouse, which sweeps up its baking crumbs four afternoons a week and hands over the keys. As well as being a sweet idea, it’s savvy business.

Speaking of, bakeries have become just as common in our morning routines as cafes, with the choices for bread, cheesy pastries and bronzed croissants exploding over the past few years. The variety and creativity spur more interest from consumers, but affordability is undeniably another factor.

And this movement is not limited to Australia. “[Chefs] have started to realise that we can feed people in a different way,” says UK-born and world-famous baker Richard Hart, who recently visited Melbourne to run a sell-out pop-up.

“I worked in fine-dining restaurants before becoming a baker. Now, I get to feed everyone – grandmas, kids, people with lower income, people that can’t afford to eat in those fancy restaurants. We can use really good ingredients. We can make stuff with a lot of love.”

Good Food’s Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025, presented by T2, 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. Download the Good Food app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store to discover what’s near you.