The Best Coffee Shops in Greece

A plant-based cafe in central Athens that roasts its own single-origin coffee and keeps the pace at a low-grade sprint most of the morning. The weekly rotating dessert specials and lighter menu draw a crowd that moves through fast, so if you have questions for the barista, wait for a lull. The coffee program leans curious, the kind of place where leaving the choice to whoever is behind the bar tends to end in a pleasant surprise.

An Ozzy Osbourne vinyl on the wall sets the tone for this small roaster-cafe, where the 2024 Greek roasting champion roasts in-house on a rare Silon ZR7. The dark interior is covered in collages, the opposite of a commercial chain in every sense. Expect light-to-medium roasts that hold onto their natural sweetness, brewed with the kind of nerdy precision that has regulars discussing pour ratios over the counter.

A La Marzocco sits center stage in the white-brick room, with a V60 station up front and in-house baking filling the rest of the counter. This is a serious neighborhood espresso bar tucked up a quiet hill near the National Garden, where the filter menu rotates through changing roasters and the co-owner has a Hellenic Brewers Cup win on the shelf. Sprudge included it in their Athens coffee guide, which in coffee circles carries weight.

Ibrik coffee prepared in a bed of hot sand is the reason to stop at this old-school Athenian coffee shop near the Varvakios Central Market. They roast their own beans and pull espresso for anyone who prefers their coffee pre-wave, but the hovoli method, finely ground coffee heated in a small copper pot, is the thing. The room runs high-ceilinged and retro, with sidewalk tables pressed against the windows where the full noise of central Athens provides the ambiance.

The space used to be a cobbler shop, and the name stuck when the coffee took over. This graffiti-covered corner café in downtown Athens has an outdoor bench culture and a soundtrack loud enough to feel like a party, while inside the blenders and espresso machines run at full tilt. Beans come from a local Kallithea roaster known for milk-friendly blends, and the baked goods sell out fast enough that showing up early is not optional.

A concrete-and-wood warehouse in Piraeus, about a 20-minute train ride from central Athens, that roasts its own coffee on a brand-new Loring machine. The head roaster came up through Samba Coffee Roasters and has a clear philosophy: sweet, clean, varietal-forward coffee brewed with good water. The menu is deliberately short while the team gets things right, which, in a city full of serious coffee shops, is a reasonable thing to say out loud.

Half the specialty coffee shops in Athens trace their lineage back to this place. Taf is an old-school institution in the Exarchia neighborhood, the kind of coffee shop where the baristas judge sensory championships on weekends and direct-trade single-origins are poured with deliberate ceremony. Bags of beans and filter gear line the shelves if you want to take the obsession home. Serious without being unfriendly, and a short walk from legendary loukoumades.

A multi-floor specialty coffee shop two minutes from Thiseo metro, close enough to the Acropolis that tourists occasionally stumble in looking for the path. Pull up a stool at the dedicated brew bar and the staff will happily get into water mineral content and extraction ratios without you having to ask twice. The team behind it has serious competition credentials, and the rotating pour-over menu leans toward naturals and washed African lots.

The coffee packaging mimics the hides of animals from each origin country, which tells you something about the level of thought going into things here. This specialty coffee shop in the northern suburb of Marousi draws a loyal neighborhood crowd, but the team behind it includes competitive cup tasters and SCA trainers. A spiral staircase leads to a Standart-stacked upper floor; downstairs, retail shelves carry Timemore gear and the shop's own vividly boxed beans.