Hobart Coffee Guide

Hobart espresso bars & specialty coffee shops

Atlas Espresso / The Stagg 

18 Elizabeth Street, CBD

Atlas Espresso is one of Hobart’s most popular small-scale coffee creators, showcasing a good number of different roasts. What they are best known for, though, is their barista expertise: more specifically, for holding the Guinness World Record – on several occasions, having broken their own record several times – for making the most cappuccinos in an hour, as well as the most coffees made by one person in a single hour. Even better, their sister cafe, the Stagg (located in the ground floor of the Colonial Mutual Life Building) also has amazing homemade food. They are particularly renowned for their legendary egg and bacon roll and fresh muffins. But the creative toasted sandwich combinations – like the “Bat out of Hell” meatloaf special, or their oozey Rueben – are always a safe choice, too. 

Pilgrim Coffee 

54 Liverpool Street 

It’s hard to avoid the inevitable cliché with this place but, being located just a short walk from both the throng of Elizabeth Street and the activity of the Waterfront and Salamanca Square, Pilgrim Coffee really is worth, if not a full pilgrimage, at least a detour or a decent walk. The space is cool, with beam ceilings, exposed-brick walls and creative lighting, and it feels like a good spot to take a load off. More importantly, though, this is one of Hobart’s most award-winning espresso bars and coffee shops – including an Australian Latte Art Championship – with a strong barista staff and well curated selection of beans from artisan roasters around Australia, such as ONA (Canberra), Marvel Street (Byron Bay), and St Ali (Melbourne). It also has pastries and light bites, if you need a bit more sustenance with your supreme bean.

Lost Freight Cafe 

Wellington Park

Located halfway up Mount Wellington at the Springs, this is a unique Hobart cafe in every way. Housed inside a repurposed shipping container, Lost Freight is a very popular spot (with stunning views!) to rest or refuel on a hike up the hill. If you’re just here for the superb coffee, though, you won’t be disappointed: showcasing locally roasted beans by Zimmah, as well as a range of different extraction methods and single-origin samples, the standard of coffee here is much higher than you might expect from a seemingly simple, hole-in-the-wall container.

Born in Brunswick 

410 Elizabeth Street, North Hobart

Inspired by the world-famous coffee scene of Melbourne’s inner northern suburbs, Born in Brunswick takes its curation of beans and execution of extraction methods seriously. Sourcing roasts both locally and around Australia, including a strong connection with Industry Beans, Born in Brunswick’s ever-changing menu of single-origin roasts reads a bit like a fancy wine menu: different varietals pop up here and there, with some releases changing throughout the seasons, and there’s always a diverse selection to try out. Whether you’re after pour over, batch brew or superbly espresso, Born in Brunswick can cater to any connoisseur’s needs.

Hobart coffee roasters & roastery-cafe combos

Ecru + Villino 

18 & 30 Criterion Street, CBD

If you’re in the inner city and fancy a fine coffee, without the fuss of finding a table or waiting in line, this is a superb option. Both a stalwart and an upstart in Hobart’s CBD coffee scene, Villino has, in one form or another, been serving crowds of coffee-craving city folk for a number of years – it’s just that they have adapted and done it in different ways over that time. Initially, Villino Espresso was a popular, Italian-style cafe, with queues out the door for quality espresso, consistently flavoursome coffee and a very stoic, elegant, classical style. A few years after that, Villino pivoted to roasting their own coffee, initially for a fairly mainstream selection of beans but, as time went on, more and more unique and unusual green beans have started popping up in their roasts (the Indonesian Ming Solok single-origin is an acid-sweet flavour bomb). Finally, Villino completed the full transition to hip urban coffee bar with the opening of Ecru, a small, coffee-only, hole-in-the-wall just a few doors down that is focused exclusively on providing quality coffee and espresso tastings. Their house roast is typically smooth and velvety, retaining good earthy notes even in milk-based coffees.

Yellow Bernard 

109 Collins Street, CBD

A relative newcomer to the Hobart CBD coffee scene, Yellow Bernard is refreshingly different in many ways. Although it looks much like any typical, modern urban coffee spot, Yellow Bernard was started by a few coffee lovers with absolutely no industry background or hospitality experience. That may sound like a negative – but it’s not. What you find here – rather than standard conventions and cliché cool-coffee snobbery – is a genuine at-home feel, and an authentic dedication to brewing the best coffee, borne from the passion of figuring it out on their own. Yellow Bernard are perhaps best known for their famous cold brew, called “Fast Eddie”, a sweet-milky concoction perfect for those in a hurry. They roast their own seasonal blend, Project Yellow, as well as a never-ending rotation of interesting single-origin roasts. In many ways, the Yellow Bernard experience is a taste of freedom, liberation and passion. In other ways, it’s simply a really nice space to sit down and have a lovely cup of coffee.

Island Espresso + Zimmah 

171 Elizabeth Street and 219 Murray Street, North Hobart

Island Espresso is a wholesome, cosy, family-run cafe, full of warm nooks and a cute loft, that has been around on the Hobart coffee scene for a long time. In fact, many Hobart baristas and roasters who have since spawned their own booming enterprises started their careers here in the early 2000s. Its most famous spawning, however, is that of (owners) Knezevic family son Dean, who started roasting in the cafe basement several years ago and now has the much-expanded, very popular, and super successful Zimmah Coffee Roasters, just up the road on Murray Street. Here, you can taste whichever single-origin roasts Dean is working on in a quirky, bar-vibe space; or take home a bag of their punchy, bitter-citrus and dark-smoke “Son of a Gun” blend, or the more rounded, syrupy-rich and vanilla-noted “Devil and the Deep” blend.

Hobart Coffee Roasters 

1/1 Franklin Wharf

With a prime spot on Hobart Waterfront and outstanding food, Hobart Coffee Roasters’ Franklin Wharf chapter would be popular enough even without fantastic coffee. However, as the name suggests, coffee is the main drawcard here. They have a small-batch roasting operation that supplies all their beans, with the cafe’s high through traffic allowing a number of different roasts and varieties to get decent trial runs. The result is a wide range of house and specialty blends in addition to different single-origin releases. One advantage of the in-house operation here is that you can always ask the cafe staff directly about the roasting process, and their latest projects. The “Happy Days” house blend is full of warm malty chocolate with a touch of acidity, while their “Day Dreamer” light roast is surprisingly sweet and fruity, with much less sharp citrus tones than light roasts typically tend to have. If you’re just popping in to take some beans home, they have plenty of options and stock. However, getting a peek or a whiff of the fresh baking, decadent burgers and exquisite desserts – not to mention the ocean views – might just convince you to hang around.

Straight Up Coffee & Food + Straight Up Roasters

202 Liverpool Street (CBD) & 10 Sunderland Street (Moonah)

Somewhere between a community centre, a coffee academy and a scientific laboratory, the Straight Up Roasters space in Moonah is a hub of Hobart coffee activity. Starting in 2014 as a small, in-house roasting operation out of their sister cafe – Straight Up Coffee & Food, one of Hobart’s best vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free cafes – Straight Up Roasters have increased impressively since then, scaling up to supply multiple cafes around the city while still keeping a small-batch, artisan, hands-on approach. Drop by for a chat, a taste, or to see how they do things the whole way along the chain: from sourcing their green beans through roasting to brewing.

Ready to plan a Hobart coffee date, or a full Tasmanian tour?

Whether Hobart is the be-all-and-end-all of your time in Tasmania, or it’s just one stop along the way of a full-blown Tasmanian road trip, you can start planning your coffee break in Hobart on First Light Travel now. In addition to a number of prescribed self-drive Tasmanian tour itineraries, they have the option of creating a customised travel itinerary to suit you. Have any concerns or queries? Just reach out and ask, they’ll be happy to help.