The Best Coffee Houses in Europe

Choosing the bean

Most of the European coffee bars here work the same way at the counter. Several single-origin beans are open at once, and the barista asks what the customer likes before suggesting one. Corica in Brussels labels more than twenty beans by origin and taste notes. At Mame in Zurich drinkers pick from a flavour wheel, and Kanso Coffee Lab in Munich and Mazelab in Prague serve each cup with a card about the coffee.

Filter and flights

Filter coffee gets as much attention as espresso. Pour-over is brewed by hand, one cup at a time, often on a cone-shaped V60 dripper. Unfiltered Coffee in Dublin serves it as a guided tasting, and Brew Lab, also in Dublin, has a pour-over bar where baristas walk guests through each step. Some bars sell several coffees side by side: Kanso has omakase bean flights and Mazelab a four-coffee tasting set. Friedhats Fuku Cafe in Amsterdam keeps a separate list of rare Geshas and experimental processes.

Seats and queues

The rooms are small. Tim Wendelboe in Oslo has very few seats and a queue that often reaches the street, and Bean Bank Coffee in Zurich is mostly takeaway with a bench outside. The Dude Specialty Coffee in Skopje spreads over an old family house with a back garden, and Stow in Ljubljana is inside the City Museum, entered through the museum without a ticket, with a courtyard terrace.

One coffee country

Some bars are built around the coffee of a single country. Črno Zrno in Ljubljana is run by a Colombian owner and serves Colombian beans. Le Maung in Paris and Meramanis Coffee Roaster in Cologne both roast Indonesian beans, and Meramanis adds taro and aren lattes. Viahe Caphe near Bastille in Paris serves Vietnamese robusta with condensed milk at low tables with red plastic stools.