Allpress roasts on-site with cathedral ceilings and Batch Baby runs one of East London's sharpest specialty programmes. Strong locals fill in the rest.
The best coffee you'll find
One of East London's sharpest specialty stops, with multiple single-origin batch brews on at once and an espresso programme that's taken just as seriously. Serious coffee, relaxed neighbourhood energy.
Allpress roast their beans right here in Hackney, and you can feel it the moment you walk in. Single-origin espresso, cathedral ceilings, sacks of fresh coffee everywhere — this is the real thing.
Worth going out of your way
Good if you're nearby
A proper neighbourhood café in Hackney where the coffee is solid and the welcome is genuine. The kind of place you leave feeling better than when you walked in.
A beautifully refurbished Hackney spot where the pistachio latte is genuinely worth the trip. Unhurried, welcoming, and the kind of neighbourhood café you'll want to make a regular.
A tucked-away independent behind Dalston Kingsland station where barista Kris runs a tight, craft-focused operation that leaves the local chains looking embarrassing. Go for the hojicha latte and stay longer than you planned.
A proper owner-run local in Dalston where the coffee is consistent enough to become a daily habit. The kind of place that remembers your order.
Dalston's go-to for a properly made flat white, run by an owner who's actually there and clearly cares. The toasties are excellent too.
An Ethiopian restaurant and café in Dalston where the food is the main event, but the coffee carries real cultural weight. The name alone tells you something: Kaffa is the Ethiopian region where coffee was born.
KHP is the kind of Dalston local you end up in every weekend without meaning to. Great flat whites, good pastry, and a genuinely warm room.
The only place in London where you can drink a proper kopi susu made with Indonesian palm sugar and real Indonesian beans, then pick up a bag of those same beans on your way out.
A Dalston deli-café that gets the basics exactly right: honest espresso pricing, a seasonal drinks menu that actually earns the word refined, and a room that makes you want to stay for lunch.
One of Dalston's most pleasant places to spend a morning, HELMA pairs ingredient-led food with solid espresso drinks in a calm, unhurried room.
Tin Café is the kind of Dalston local that earns genuine loyalty, a cosy, unpretentious spot where the flat white is solid and the atmosphere does the rest.
One of Dalston's best brunch spots, and the coffee is good enough to keep up. Come for the food, stay because nothing about it disappoints.
Come for the cardamom date rolls and potato sourdough, which are as good as anything you'll find in East London. The flat white is a solid, no-nonsense companion to the food.
A Dalston neighbourhood café that gets the basics genuinely right. The flat white is round and flavourful, the food is worth staying for, and the whole place feels like somewhere people actually want to be.
One of Dalston's best-loved neighbourhood spots, where the Mediterranean food is genuinely the draw. Come for the chicken skewers and peach salad, and the coffee will do its job well.
Abraço is the kind of neighbourhood café that earns genuine loyalty: Ozone Coffee on the machine, a long black that regularly gets called the best in Dalston, and French toast worth making the trip for.
A neighbourhood deli-café in Kingsland that takes both its coffee and its food seriously. The flat whites are well-made, the barista knows their stuff, and the whole place has the kind of independent character that's getting harder to find.