It’s no secret that Melbourne is Australia’s one-stop shop for everything coffee-related.
While a perfectly brewed batch has an exceedingly important role in our quotidian lives, stunning interiors, illuminous natural lighting and expertly plated dishes are also exceedingly important in choosing the perfect café to upload your latest Instagram post.
Luckily, Melbourne’s coffee-oriented culture is not limited to simply to strong lattes and flat whites, and extends to the interiors and ambience of the many instagrammable cafes scattered around the city.
Here, the best cafes that meet all the prerequisites in crafting the most picture-perfect Instagram moment (while making seriously good coffee and food in the process).
Lead image: @industrybeans
Fat Albert
Location: Albert Park
If Slim Aarons-inspired art and a millennial pink coffee machine sound like your kind of scene, you’ll love the interiors of this reasonably new Albert Park haunt.
Image: @clarealice
Vacation Coffee
Location: Melbourne CBD
Opened by brothers Kael and Matt Sahely, this café, conveniently located in the heart of Melbourne city, boasts beautiful ’80s-inspired interiors, with pastel colouring and plenty of natural lighting, prompting the innumerable amount of Instagram posts that were created within its walls.
Photo: @its.a.vacation
The Kettle Black
Location: South Melbourne
This café’s 71.3K Instagram follower count definitely speaks to its distinct ‘instagrammable’ quality. Aside from the building’s interior beauty—ideal for your Sunday morning gram—The Kettle Black also hosts a very unique menu, with dishes ranging from Raw Kingfish on Spelt Grain to Chocolate Polenta Porridge.
Photo: @kettleblackcafe
Higher Ground
Location: Melbourne CBD
Fifteen-metre high ceilings coupled with a spacious mezzanine favourably placed above the ever bustling ground floor, this café is Instagram heaven and the food’s not too bad either, offering a day, night and event menu for any occasion that you want to add to your social media catalogue.
Image: @highergoundmelbourne
Rustica
Location: Fitzroy, Hawthorn, CBD, Melbourne Central, Highpoint
This artisanal bread specialist has cafes in five different locations throughout Melbourne, and we’re glad for it. Homemade sourdough is enough to make our mouths water, but the interiors of their Melbourne Central establishment (pictured above) are what really caught our eye—and our iPhones’ camera lenses. The other locations are similarly picturesque.
@rustica_hq
The Stables Of Como
Location: South Yarra
This rustic cafe and events space, housed in the stables of a historic mansion, offers very photogenic baked goods and has a picnic option, so you can have your lunch to-go in the property’s gorgeous gardens.
Image: @thestablesofcomo
Sensory Lab
Location: Melbourne City and Port Melbourne
Aptly using the adjective ‘sensory’ in its title, this café will take you on a journey via your tastebuds, while the subdued, minimalist interiors (the Collins Street location looks like a futuristic American diner) will compliment your expertly brewed cup, making for a fantastic mid-week upload.
Photo: @sensory_lab
Bawa
Location: Hawthorn
The name Bawa is inspired by Geoffrey Bawa—a Sri Lankan architect who promulgated the concept of “tropical modernism”—inspiring the plant-based interior design features, which make this stunning Hawthorn café so very instragrammable.
Photo: @bawa_cafe
Gilson
Location: South Yarra
With a touch of Old Hollywood glamour and a dose of garden party chic, this sophisticated spot right on Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens is the ultimate ‘ladies who lunch’ destination.
Image: @gilson_southyarra
Grub Fitzroy
Location: Fitzroy
While Melbourne’s architectural style usually conjures images of grungy brick walls and warm industrial interiors, sometimes an outdoor moment is what you need for that midday boost, which is exactly what you’ll find at Grub Fitzroy. We’re sure that you’ll capture that perfect shot amongst the foliage in their famous greenhouse, too.
Image: @grubfitzroy
No.19
Location: Ascot Vale
This café is the design product of the celebrated Melbourne-based studio Biasol, so suffice to say the bright, white design is what No.19 is known for, second only to their moreish menu.
Image: @no.19society
Cafe Latte
Location: Hawksburn
An elegant neighbourhood favourite, this Italian cafe and restaurant has the kind of interior that can easily transition between morning coffee and pastry to special occasion family dinner.
Image: @cafelattehawksburn
Kitty Burns
Location: Abbotsford
The name Kitty Burns is the result of the combination of the café’s creators Kitty Minogue and Alma Burns, but we’re mostly just thinking about how this river-side knockout combines nutritiously delicious food with vibrant interiors that will undoubtedly inspire your latest Instagram post.
Image: @kitty.burns
Vertue Coffee Roasters
Location: Carlton
Unique dishes definitely make for ‘like’-heavy Instagram posts and satisfied customers, and Vertue Coffee Roasters’ Harissa Scramble or Tamarind Prawn Toast will definitely do both.
Image: @vertuecoffee
Industry Beans
Location: Fitzroy and Melbourne CBD
It’s no wonder that this Fitzroy-based café was the recipient of the UK International Café Award for the best designed café in 2014, because it’s almost hard to take a bad photo at this expertly designed open warehouse-style café set amongst in an urban, graffiti-laden neighbourhood.
Photo: @industrybeans
Bentwood
Location: Fitzroy
Fitzroy is known for its quintessentially grunge, industrial aesthetic and Bentwood is like the polished embodiment of this very instagrammable quality, while also offering plentiful natural light. Make sure to try the chia pudding while you are there.
Image: @bentwoodfitzroy
Code Black Coffee
Location: Brunswick
This Brunswick-based café is pretty serious about coffee, but that certainly doesn’t mean they don’t care about interiors. The matte black walls against the polished concrete flooring gives the venue a degree of sophistication that we aspire to in all of our Instagram uploads.
Image: @codeblackcoffee
Glovers Station
Location: Elsternwick
Situated in a renovated historic Tudor garage, we will certainly be channelling Keira Knightley in The Other Boleyn Girl whilst we pose sipping our dragon phoenix oolong tea at this stunning venue.
Image: @gloverssation
