30 best coffee shops in Tokyo

A refined new addition to Tokyo’s coffee scene, Kuro Mame in Kamiyacho is changing how we appreciate coffee. The serene space can be thought of more as a tasting room than a café, with cosy seating and a minimalist four-seat counter where you can try coffee 'omakase' style.

While you can grab a drink from their takeaway window at an accessible price point, it’s worth reserving a seat inside for the full omakase experience. Here, baristas curate the perfect coffee to suit your taste or mood. The dine-in area is by reservation only and coffees start from around ¥4,000. It’s not an everyday stop for a quick caffeine fix, but a special opportunity to savour some of the world’s finest specialty coffee, handpicked by World Brewers Cup-winning barista and owner Emi Fukahori.

Kuro Mame was started by Fukahori and fellow barista Mathieu Theis, who also run a handful of cafés in Switzerland and a roastery that supplies coffee around Asia and the US. The Tokyo outpost is their first location outside Switzerland, offering a curated selection of beans roasted in-house – many of which are used in world brewing championships. There are around 15 varieties available, all exclusive to Kuro Mame Tokyo and sourced directly from producers.

Raw Sugar Roast started as a roasted bean wholesaler before opening a café in Setagaya in 2022. It's run by Masashi Oda, who's had experience with roasting in Australia, the UK and Glitch Coffee & Roasters in Tokyo as well as co-president Yuya Kosakada who's worked as a manager and trainer at Paul Bassett.

The roastery’s exposed concrete interior is accented with vintage European furniture. Currently, there’s ample seating on the first floor, and there will be more once the café expands to the second floor.

Raw Sugar Roast operates on a 'seed to cup' ethos. It sources the beans and then roasts them meticulously to bring out the beans’ distinctive flavours. The same dedication and precision also apply to the brewing process to create a perfect cup of coffee.

If you’ve ever braved the queues for a cup of coffee or tea at Bongen in Ginza, you’re not alone. While the original shop had little seating and functioned mainly as a takeaway stand, Bongen’s new Nihonbashi café offers a serene space with plenty of room to sit and savour a drink. 

Following the success of the Ginza location, the Nihonbashi outpost opened in April 2025. Its refined interiors take inspiration from Noh theatre, featuring a counter clad in glossy black burnt cedar and a beautifully crafted coffered ceiling. Owner Wataru Shiraishi, a passionate bonsai collector who owns around 30 trees, displays several of his prized specimens – some more than 200 years old – throughout the café.

The menu offers around 17 types of coffee, including blends and single origins, all roasted to bring out each bean's rich sweetness and bright, fruity notes. Highlights include the signature Bongen Latte Rich which uses twice the usual amount of beans for a deeply satisfying cup. For food, try the salted onigiri rice ball or the taiyaki monaka wafer filled with rich cream cheese and anko bean paste.

Japan’s first outpost of Taipei’s Pharos Coffee, this sleek café is a destination for discerning coffee lovers, celebrated for its expertly brewed light roasts. 

The interior is minimalist yet warm, blending clean lines with natural textures to create a relaxing environment. One side of the space doubles as an art gallery, showcasing rotating exhibitions. An original soundtrack by Taiwanese ambient artists enhances the serene setting, creating a calming atmosphere that makes the café ideal for lingering. Jimbocho proved the ideal location, perfectly matching the owner’s passions for art, music and coffee – qualities the neighbourhood itself is renowned for. 

The menu is refreshingly simple, with around five beans available as hand-drip, cold brew or cold brew latte. For something special, try the café’s musician series, where each coffee bean is named for its flavours, reminiscent of the melodies of great composers such as Mozart.

The well-ventilated and pleasantly uncrowded, cave-like basement of Green Terrace Omotesando, the flashy fashion street’s newest boutique cluster, is home to Tokyo’s first Philocoffea café, a dainty shrine to serious speciality coffee.

Playing the role of head priest here is pour-over phenom Tetsu Kasuya, the 2016 World Brewers Cup Champion, a coffee-community celeb famed for his uncompromising approach to both hand-drip science and bean curation.

The inventor of the revolutionary 4:6 method – an intuitive formula for dividing the hot water used to brew a cup of coffee, which allows for easy flavour adjustments – Kasuya has introduced the coffee world to a smattering of buzz-generating recipes in recent years. At the Omotesando café he showcases his latest hybrid approach: a combination of pour-over and immersion. The result? An impeccably balanced cup with the silkiest taste around.

Ryogoku continues to be a low-key hideout for some of Tokyo’s best coffee shops, and it has just gained another winner: MMC. Located about a six-minute walk from Ryogoku Station, this café specialises in coffee sourced from Yunnan, China. 

Owner Zhao Qian Yingbo, a barista from Shanghai and certified Q Grader, brings his expertise to Mountain Mover Coffee’s first brick-and-mortar location. Here, guests can sample coffee made from beans carefully selected by Zhao himself, who personally visits the regions where they’re grown. 

The café offers more than just great brews. Alongside a unique selection of coffee varieties, you’ll find homemade sweets and even coffee-based cocktails. Start off with the Coffee Combo, which lets you compare three different styles: Americano, café latte and signature coffee. Pair it with the Coffee Rice Pudding, a playful twist on a local Yunnan dessert, for the perfect sweet finish.

With branches dotted around inner city neighbourhoods including Tomigaya, Asakusa and Hanegi Koen, Fuglen is a Tokyo coffee institution. Its latest café in Sangubashi looks nothing like your regular coffee shop, as it’s set in a beautifully restored old Japanese house. The space is divided into two sections: the front of the house and garden for casual sit-down and takeaway drinks, and the back counter which is dedicated to Fuglen’s coffee tasting course (by reservation only).

While this Fuglen uses the same beans as its other outlets, what sets this Sangubashi café apart is the way it pushes the envelope by refining the beans’ flavour profiles through various preparation methods. For instance, beans for hand drip coffee are first shaken in a canister to air them out and prevent unwanted acidity. They are then ground using a unique hand grinder to prevent heat affecting their aroma. Then, just before brewing, the coffee ground is shaken through a sieve to extract a uniform-sized ground and eliminate any components that might bring out bad flavours.

This Sydney transplant has been in the coffee business since 2003 and set up an outpost in Tokyo’s sumo heartland, Ryogoku, in 2014 – on the cusp of Japan’s coffee boom. Fast forward to 2024 and the roastery has now moved into a brand new space in celebration of its tenth anniversary in Japan.

Still located in Ryogoku, the new premises function as both a café and roastery, which stay open five days a week instead of just on the weekends, as was the case with the previous tasting bar.

Single O prides itself on securing ethically sourced coffee and highlighting the beans' natural flavours. For instance, the vibrant Reservoir house blend of Costa Rican and Ethiopian beans is a winner, producing an acidic brew that’s bright with citrus notes. Similar to the Single O Hamacho outpost, you can enjoy self-service coffee on tap here, taking your pick from four different varieties.

While Kyoto’s Ogawa Coffee may be best known for its kissaten-style cafés, the chain’s latest outpost in Shimokitazawa is an entirely new concept. Ogawa Coffee Laboratory is not a café, and can best be described as a bean salon, offering coffee masterclasses where you can learn to do more with your beans.

The sleek salon sells numerous types of coffee beans and staff will teach you how to brew the best cup of joe using a selection of 40 different coffee tools. There’s also a roaster on hand where you can try roasting a small batch of coffee beans yourself in less than 20 minutes.

During a visit, you’ll have your pick from over 20 types of coffee beans including single origin, house blends and even a selection of speciality beans. There’s also a coffee graph on hand which you can use to help pick your beans based on your preferred flavour profiles. From there, you’ll be given a choice of coffee equipment to choose how you want your coffee brewed. Whether it’s with an AeroPress, siphon, or a simple pour over, even the pickiest coffee drinker will find a range of options to choose from.

Koffee Mameya has finally given its fans the proper café space they’ve been craving with Koffee Mameya Kakeru, a stylish coffee haven nestled amongst the cool cafés in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Tokyo’s self-proclaimed coffee town.

Koffee Mameya Kakeru isn’t your average coffee shop, though. While you can purchase beans and drinks for takeaway up front, the back of the store is reserved for serious coffee drinkers looking to explore and taste different roasts, coffee cocktails and even sweets.

The main menu consists of several coffee tasting courses, where you can sample various roasts prepared in different ways – cold brew, milk brew, filtered and shots of espresso. Courses also come with Koffee Kashi, small sweets paired with your designated brew.

Glitch Coffee has opened a new outlet in Tokyo (its second in the city and fourth in Japan) with this sleek new space in Ginza. The café is centred around a chic U-shaped counter and accented with original ukiyo-e woodblock prints hanging on the walls. A curated playlist of 1980s music playing from a set of stylish Tannoy speakers adds to the atmosphere.

Glitch is known for its light-roast, single-origin coffee beans that are all roasted in-house at its Jimbocho location. By only offering light roasts, Glitch is able to showcase the original flavour of the beans. You won't find any blended coffee here as the café aims to highlight the individuality of the coffee farms and regions it works with. 

Take your pick from 15 varieties of single-origin coffee, each accompanied by an English description of its origin and flavour profile. Glitch also has an interesting ordering system: you first select the bean and then the coffee style, such as pour-over, latte or espresso.

Beloved Shibuya mainstay Coffeehouse Nishiya has moved to its new home in Asakusa with an updated name, but still serves up the same menu of Italian-inspired café drinks. Unlike its previous sit down space, the shop operates more as a standing coffee bar where you can stop by for a quick pick-me-up. Don't worry if you can't get a spot inside – just walk up to the front window and a cup of joe to go. 

Behind the counter you'll find the jovial owner and barista Kyohei Nishitani, who has quite the coffee repertoire thanks to his experience at worldwide barista competitions. Ask him for a recommendation or go for one of the classic drinks like the cocoa dusted cappuccino, espresso con panna or espresso shakerato.

While the café lacks a food menu, some of the drinks on the menu double as a dessert, like the espresso banana shake or the simple affogato. Trying to cut down on caffeine? There are drinks for you too, including an indulgent hot chocolate (ask for the cioccolata) and a thick strawberry shake. 

This Fukuoka-born coffee roastery has found a home in the old Coffeehouse Nishiya shop in Shibuya. Leaving most of Nishiya’s retro interior intact, the menu has also incorporated a few of the old café’s favourites including premium pudding. 

Rec Coffee initially started out as a small coffee truck and has expanded to ten shops including two in Tokyo and even a couple in Taiwan. Grab a seat inside or out on the terrace and enjoy an espresso or hand drip coffee made from Rec’s premium roasted beans. Have your pick from single-origin varieties and popular blends including the shop’s Hakata and Lucy blends. You can also buy beans for takeaway if you’re keen to practice your hand drip at home.

The café also boasts a small food menu with items like croque monsieurs, croque madames, hot dogs and a smoked salmon sandwich. You can make it a lunch set by adding your choice of drink. Go beyond regular coffee with an espresso banana shake, or skip the caffeine with a warm chai latte or a mug of warm, frothy milk mixed with honey.

It might look small from the outside, but this speciality roastery has a lot to offer, with a dozen kinds of coffee beans imported from around the world and roasted on-site. Owner Kenji Okauchi opened this coffee shop in 2014 with the ambition of creating a cheerful neighbourhood haunt where locals could casually drop by to pick up freshly ground, single-origin beans or a drip coffee to go. 

The upstairs café overlooks the street with the window-side table perfect for people-watching as you sip your brew. A menu of freshly baked cakes and pastries is also available to accompany your cuppa.

There’s a bright and sunny demeanour to Little Darling Coffee Roasters and it feels like you’ve been transported to California. This spacious café and roastery is part of the Share Green Minami Aoyama retail and event space, whose beautiful grounds feature repurposed warehouses and a manicured lawn adorned with lush greenery courtesy of the neighbouring florist and nursery, Solso Park.

Head barista Naoya Akagawa, who was a Coffee Fest Latte Art World Championship Open finalist, handpicks five beans and roasts them on-site two to three times a week, after which they are packaged into 100g and 200g bags. The house blend, with the twee name ‘My Bestfriend’s Crush’, is a medium to dark roast of beans from Brazil, Ethiopia, Laos and Colombia. If you’re drinking in, you can choose your preferred brewing method, whether it’s American press or filter. 

Out of Coffee Wrights’ two Tokyo locations, the main roastery and café at Kuramae is the most unassuming of the lot. While it may not look as polished as its sister outlet, the factory-like ground floor space has a very pragmatic setup that puts the focus squarely on the roasting process.

Here the beans are roasted every two to three days, resulting in an ever-changing selection of six single-origin roasts and a Brazilian decaf, which carries toasty, caramelly notes reminiscent of almonds and dark chocolate.

Sarutahiko is reinvented by the Suppose Design Office with a spacious café tucked on the second floor of the new Harajuku Station building, which opened in 2020. There’s no shortage of seating inside this roomy café which looks over one of Tokyo’s busiest neighbourhoods and is fitted with cosy couches, communal tables and counter seating.

Although a predominately modern space, there are traditional Japanese touches too, from the wooden shoji panels dividing seating areas to the bonsai tree near the entrance. Perhaps the most stunning interior piece in the coffee shop is the massive central wooden table, seemingly cut from just one tree. The table also features handy outlets for those looking to get a bit of work done.

Hidden down the backstreets of Ebisu, this charming space is everything you hope for from a quaint little neighbourhood coffee shop. It’s reassuringly homely, set in a remodelled house whose entrance is almost entirely covered up by lush leafy plants. It’s the perfect place to stay idle over coffee and cake (the gorgonzola cheesecake is a winner), but make sure to check out the second-floor gallery for its selection of handbags, jewellery and ceramics by local designers.

With a focus on single-origin varieties, Drip Bar roasts its beans in small batches to maintain greater control over quality while minimising waste. Each cup of coffee is handdripped to order, using exclusive drippers made to fit just 15g of ground coffee at a time. The dual-language menu is straightforward, with six bean options organised from the lightest to the darkest roast.

Occupying a renovated, traditional-style home right by Nakameguro Station, the most interesting café in town run by Jiyugaoka-based roasters and bean importers Onibus is equipped with a shiny espresso machine and newly acquired roaster. Just don’t expect to linger – this is a very functional spot with minimal frills.

Onibus import top-grade beans from Rwanda and Guatemala among others and roast them in the shop. The menu is as simple as the décor: espresso, americano, latte or hand drip, nothing else.

When you come to Good People & Good Coffee, a small shop tucked in the side streets near Ikejiri-Ohashi station, there are a few things you should expect: a warm welcome from barista Tomoshi Okamoto, friendly conversation, and delicious coffee that bridges a variety of genres.

Good People & Good Coffee is small and intimate, and Okamoto uses the space and his coffee blends, named after classic American pop-culture references like Johnny B Goode and Tomando, to make connections with everyone who steps inside. Here you can find coffee made in almost any style you’d want – pour-over, Seattle, Italian and, as Okamoto described it, Tokyo-style. Whatever piques Okamoto’s curiosity is what he’ll make. He communicates through his brews, tying together styles and flavours in ways that are unexpected and original, in order to create coffee that people want to drink every day.

Importing beans from Portland’s famed Stumptown Coffee Roasters every week, Daisuke Matsushima’s Paddlers have been caffeinating shoppers at the Nishihara arcade since 2015. All beans are served fresh in french press or espresso form for the perfect flavour. Beans are also available by the bag, with their most popular roast being the Nano Challa from Ethiopia, which offers delicate notes of grapefruit and peach.

To accompany your cup, order one of Paddlers’ signature hot dogs, made with buns from a bakery in the neighbourhood. The café has a calm wooden interior, communal tables and a homely atmosphere – a little piece of the Rose City in one of the quieter corners of Shibuya.

Collaboratively run by the folks behind Nozy Coffee and restaurant impresarios Tysons (TY Harbor, Cicada, Ivy Place, etc), this uber-hip roastery and café on Harajuku's Cat Street is one of the city's flashiest specialist coffee haunts.

Every day, you'll get to choose from two kinds of single-origin beans for your americano, latte or espresso – the latter comes served in a champagne glass (yes, really). The coffee soft serves and suspiciously Cronut-like NY Rings are sure to satisfy sugar addicts, while Smokehouse, the American-style BBQ restaurant upstairs, is where to head for more substantial fare (and TY Harbor craft beer).

'Coffee Only' reads the sign outside Café de l'Ambre, which has been keeping the Ginza hordes well caffeinated since 1948. The kissaten was founded by the late Ichiro Sekiguchi, and the staff on-hand continue to run the shop under his legacy. Though they treat their coffee with the utmost seriousness, this isn't one of those fussy, killjoy coffee temples where conversation has to be conducted in furtive whispers and customers need a secret handshake to get through the door (we exaggerate, but only slightly).

The interior looks like it was last remodeled in the early '80s, although some of the equipment is clearly much older, and it's also the only coffee shop we've visited that has a washing machine behind the counter, on account of the cloth filters used when preparing drinks. Take your pick between a lone blend coffee and 15-odd single origin varieties, including a few aged coffees. The air of accessibility extends to English-language menus, and practically demands that you order something odd. 

Late-night coffee spots are hard to come by in Tokyo, surprisingly so even in bustling areas like Shinjuku and Shibuya. However, we have found a gem in Ikebukuro – just a four-minute walk from the station – that’s open daily until 10pm. Mermaid Coffee Roasters pride themselves on their freshly roasted coffee beans that are handpicked and roasted in small quantities to optimise flavour and quality.

Upon entry, you'll walk by a table with all the current beans on offer as well as a small decanter where you can sample each roast. While you can’t go wrong with a hand drip or one of their espresso-based drinks, we love the quirkier items on the menu, which include a Craft Cola Coffee and Espresso Romano (coffee lemonade). Surprisingly, the spices in the craft cola accent the coffee nicely, and the effervescence from the soda water reminds us of an espresso tonic. Coffee and lemonade might seem like an unlikely combo, but the mixture results in a bold drink with a tangy punch.

Stepping through the low, marble-tiled entrance, the first thing you’ll notice is the gorgeous tableware displayed behind a long hardwood counter. That’s not to say that the surroundings here outshine the coffee – on the contrary, Satei Hato’s hand-drip offerings maintain the absolutely highest quality. Choose from up to eight varieties of charcoal-roasted beans and watch as the formally dressed staff prepare your treat with almost religious dedication. Our Guatemala, served at a pleasant, just-right temperature, was smooth and soft with a barely noticeable whiff of citrus, while the homemade cakes are well worth a shot as well.

At ¥1,000 and up, the coffee here doesn’t exactly allow for everyday consumption, but any true enthusiast will do well to visit Satei Hato at least once. When you do, look out for the massive potted tree adorning one of the larger tables – it makes for a seriously impressive decoration.

Located in coffee central, aka Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Arise is the kind of place where you feel like you’re having a good ol’ cup of coffee at your friend’s house. The walls are covered with the owner’s skateboard decks which he’s collected over the years, and there’s a handful of trinkets from his travels to Thailand littered around the in-house roaster.

As for the coffee, there are about ten single-origin varieties to choose from, with the most popular beans coming from the Dominican Republic. A light and fruity roast, this coffee exudes light notes of strawberry and is overall quite a mild one to sip on. The shop also offers a handful of pastries from a nearby bakery called Kotoripan.

Serving terrific coffee in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa since 2014 – long before the arrival of Blue Bottle made the neighbourhood one of Tokyo's third-wave hipster havens – New Zealanders Allpress also have outlets in cities like London, Sydney and Singapore. Housed in a former warehouse that's been beautifully renovated to match the brand's sleek but down-to-earth image, their Tokyo outpost is where to head for mild but refined brews. And if you're feeling peckish, go straight for Allpress's sandwiches and baked goods which include cookies, banana cake and gluten-free dark chocolate brownies.

There was a time when Musashi-Koyama was famous for little besides having a shopping arcade that seemed to go on forever. That arcade is still there, but we're more likely to make a detour to the area to get a quick jolt at Amameria Espresso. Opened in the summer of 2010 by certified cupping judge Toshiaki Ishii, this intimate shop – all exposed brick and cement walls, wooden floors and upright piano in one corner – roasts its own beans, and the aroma alone is likely to lure first-time customers.

Coffees are prepared on a handsome Synesso machine, and the espresso is buttery with a bracing citrus tang. The Gibraltar – essentially a condensed latte served in a dinky glass – has good crema, smooth with a caramelly finish. Amameria sells its house-roasted beans, including an award-winning Nicaraguan San Antonio, and they also stock an array of coffee-making gear. 

The chalkboard in front of Turret Coffee says ‘Welcome to the best outrageous coffee shop in Japan’. Named for the ‘turret’ mini-trucks that used to zip around nearby Tsukiji fish market, Turret Coffee and its owner Kiyoshi Kawasaki both pull and pour quality espresso, all in a funky, intimate space. Relax on one of the few ‘real’ seats or sit on the back of an actual turret as you chat with friends, or with Kawasaki himself, while sipping your drink. If you need a real pick-me-up get the Turret Latte, which has a double shot of espresso – not to mention some beautiful latte art.

Those with a sweet tooth can try the seasonal offering or snag one of the fluffy, buttery dorayaki (a pancake sandwich filled with red bean paste) made especially for Turret. 

The perfect place for a coffee break in busy Shinjuku, 4/4 Seasons serves up a well-curated selection of single-origin beans roasted in house daily. Up at the front of the café you’ll be greeted by the roaster alongside tubs of beans – if you’re lucky enough, you can catch the staff in action, meticulously measuring and carefully roasting their beans all while keeping track of the process via computer.

The beans at 4/4 (pronounced ‘all’, it turns out) are sourced from seven countries, and the shop speciality is variations on light roasts matching the beans in question.