Best Coffee in Melbourne – Part 5

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for… Humphreys official countdown of the top nine Melbourne cafes is complete! This post discuss the top two cafes, and provides a summary of the whole countdown.

This is the final post in a series of posts about my favourite cafes in Melbourne. If you have come straight to this page, you might prefer to start reading from part 1, part 2, part 3, or part 4.

My top nine cafes in Melbourne

So here’s the list! Feel free to print this out, and take it with you on your next coffee crawl. You have my permission to start drooling… wait for it… a little longer… NOW!

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, ranking these cafes was a really hard task. Dan and I also disagreed on the order. This is mostly because we both drank different cups of coffees, and so had different experiences of flavour and consistancy.

Anyway, let’s talk about number…

2 — The Maling Room

Corner Maling & Canterbury Roads
Canterbury
(Show in Google Maps)

www.malingroom.com.au

Yes, I spelt that correctly! This was the first cafe that we went to on our crawl and is located about a two minute walk from the Canterbury train station in an old post & telegraph office. It’s so close to the train station, that we learn the hard way that you can still catch the train if you see it coming while you are standing out the front! Unlike many of the other cafes we visited, which are old buildings made funky, The Maling Room has a classic style. Sitting down there made me feel like I had slipped into a wormhole and been taken back to the good old colonial Melbourne days:

“Bring me my pipe and shot a whiskey… and hurry up with that telegram old chap. The sheep won’t shear themselves!”

I had had heard many people talk about this place, so I had very high expectations. So when my rather average tasting, standard shot, flat white arrived I was disappointed. It was weak and had no interesting characteristics. It was probably half of a double shot that was split into two cups — with the other cup getting most of the liquid.

Just as I started to wish that I had ordered tea instead, Dan started raving about his double ristretto flat white. So, I ordered one… and… it was pure bliss! Every coffee I had after that was just as good. I’m guessing that my first must have been an infrequent dud! However, it was that first coffee that pushed this great cafe from number 2, to number 1. Every coffee that Dan had here was amazing, so he ranking The Maling Room as his no. 1!

These guys roast their own coffee and it’s pretty good! This place is defintely worth the train ride out to Canterbury! On our last day in Melbourne we came here again. One of the guys recognised us from when we bought some beans a couple of days before. Anyway, he bought us out a taste of some plunged Harrar. OMG, it was by far the best tasting plunger I had ever had in my life So fruity, so light, so smooth, and so blueberry. That cup of plunger perfection has actually motivated me to drink plunger at home more often.

1 — St Ali

12-18 Yarra Place
South Melbourne
(Show in Google Maps)

www.stali.com.au

This was my favourite cafe of the crawl. Why? Maybe it was the modern atmosphere created by of an old building being turned into a funky cafe? Maybe it was the fast & friendly service? Maybe it was the extremely tasty food? Maybe it was coffee? Or maybe it was because they were roasting coffee in the same open area of the cafe? Anyway, this is my favourite cafe in Melbourne!

Like most of the cafes we went to, these guys also offered a single origin of the day. Since we went there twice we had three different blends / beans all up and they were all good! The only caffine headache that I got while in Melbourne was caused from my uncontrollable desire for more of the smooth St Ali goodness.

Anyway, it’s a great place to go for coffee! I love how all of their coffee roasting is going on before your eyes — turns out that they roast almost all day every day. They must roast a lot of coffee! The place was also packed both times that we came here. However, St Ali is such a finely tuned machine that our drinks and food came faster than most cafes would be able to when they were empty :-)

The staff were more than happy to give Dan & I a quick tour of the roasters and bean storage, etc, so make sure you ask to have a look around. The coolest thing though was that the dude who showed us around had heard about us. Stu had gone there a month or two before and had told the guy about how we roast our own coffee at home. So when we were there he was telling us about these guys from Tassie who roast their own coffee!

Anyway, definitely check this place out if you are in Melbourne. You’ll you happy you took the short tram ride (or walk) from the CBD.

End of the crawl :-(

Well that’s the end of this Melbourne Coffee Crawl series. I hope you’ve found these reviews / comments useful! It’d be great to hear what you have to say, so leave some comments below! :-)