☕ The NRI Guy · Curated
Top Cafés in India.
Specialty coffee finally arrived. Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Goa — all four cities now have third-wave roasters that compete with Tokyo, Melbourne and Berlin. Here's where to actually go for the cup that shifts your benchmark.
By Amish · Mumbai · Updated monthly
India's coffee story used to start and end at Café Coffee Day. Then a decade of returning Indians, Australian-trained baristas, and Etsy-grade roasters from Chikmagalur and Coorg quietly built the second-wave scene. By 2026 the result is a coffee map you can plan a four-city trip around. Here's the cup-by-cup itinerary.
City One
Mumbai · the third-wave capital.
Bandra, Khar, Worli, Lower Parel — every postcode has its specialty roaster now.
Bandra · Single-origin obsessive
Subko Coffee Roasters (Pali Hill)
If you grew up in San Francisco's Sightglass or Melbourne's Market Lane, this is the cup that resets your India benchmark.
Founder Rahul Reddy ran specialty roasters in New York before opening Subko in 2020. The Bandra flagship is a five-storey townhouse — roastery on the ground floor, café on the first, bakery feeding fresh sourdough hourly. Order: the single-origin Vienna roast, neat. Their Karnataka micro-lots beat any pour-over you'll get in India. Croissants and miso butter cookies pair shockingly well.
Address14th Rd, Pali Hill, Bandra West
Hours8am–10pm daily
Average₹450 / coffee + bake
Reserve via Zomato →
Bandra · Multi-city specialty chain
Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters (Bandra, Worli, BKC)
India's first true specialty chain — Matt Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana opened the Saket location in 2013 and quietly normalised single-origin pour-overs across the country.
By 2026 there are 50+ Blue Tokai outposts, but the Bandra and Worli locations remain the editorial flagships. Order: the Vienna Roast as filter coffee (cold brew if it's May), with their walnut banana bread. The Bandra location has the city's best courtyard seating; Worli is where the Saturday-morning Worli set congregates over weekend papers.
AddressBandra (Carter Rd), Worli, BKC, more
Hours7:30am–10pm daily
Average₹350–500 / coffee + pastry
Visit Blue Tokai →
Bandra · Pâtisserie + brunch
Le15 Café (Pali Hill)
Pooja Dhingra trained at Le Cordon Bleu Paris and opened India's first French-style macaron studio in 2010. A decade later her Bandra café-pâtisserie is the city's standard for weekend brunch.
The macaron flight (12 flavours) is the obvious move, but the real pull is the weekend brunch menu — French toast with mascarpone and seasonal berry compote, croque madame, eggs benedict on a brioche bun. The coffee is solid, not flagship-tier; you're here for the pastry programme. ₹1,200 a head with eggs + flat white.
AddressLinking Rd, Pali Hill, Bandra West
Hours9am–11pm daily
Average₹900–1,500 / brunch
Book on Zomato →
City Two
Delhi · the brunch institutions.
Khan Market, Lodhi Colony, Hauz Khas — Delhi café culture is older and more institutional than Mumbai's.
Pragati Maidan · Modern Indian
Café Lota (National Crafts Museum)
Delhi's most-photographed café for a reason: a stone-and-brick courtyard inside the Crafts Museum complex, serving a regional Indian menu that's smarter than anything else in the city.
Order the Bisi Bele Bath, the Sindhi Kadi, or the Galouti Kebab waffle (yes, really — it works). The coffee is filter, the way it's meant to be. Combine it with a wander through the Crafts Museum next door — the only museum in Delhi where the gift shop is itself a destination.
AddressCrafts Museum, Pragati Maidan
Hours10:30am–9pm (closed Mon)
Average₹1,000 / lunch + coffee
Book on Zomato →
Khan Market · Institution
Big Chill Café (Khan Market & Saket)
No specialty coffee programme. Not trying to be modern. Big Chill is the Delhi café that every NRI has a memory of — and somehow the menu hasn't lost a step in 25 years.
Penne arrabbiata, the chocolate cheesecake, the Diet Coke that's somehow always at the perfect temperature. It's nostalgia food, served well. Khan Market location for the post-shopping crowd; Saket for the weekend with-family lunch. Don't expect third-wave coffee; expect the Delhi institution that taught a generation of NRIs what an Indian café could feel like.
AddressKhan Market & Saket Select Citywalk
Hours12pm–11pm daily
Average₹1,500 / lunch for two
Book on Zomato →
Anand Lok · Specialty espresso
Diggin (Anand Lok)
A specialty café hidden inside a south Delhi residential lane that 95 percent of Delhi residents still don't know about. The cup that surprises every visiting foodie.
Wood-and-cement aesthetic, all-day breakfast menu, a serious La Marzocco espresso programme. Order: the cortado with a poached-egg avocado toast. Their cardamom flat white is one of the most-replicated Delhi café drinks of the last five years. Hauz Khas adjacent — combine with a walk through the Deer Park.
AddressS-7, Anand Lok, Off August Kranti Marg
Hours8am–11pm daily
Average₹600 / breakfast + coffee
Book on Zomato →
City Three
Bangalore · the country's coffee origin.
All Indian specialty coffee is roasted from beans grown in a 200km radius of here. The cup is closest to its source in Bangalore.
Indiranagar · Roaster-led
Third Wave Coffee Roasters (Indiranagar & HSR)
Founded in 2017 with a single Indiranagar roastery, Third Wave is now the country's most-funded specialty coffee chain — and rightly so. The cup is consistently excellent.
Their Vienna roast is the city's reference point for filter coffee. Their seasonal cold brew programme rotates Karnataka, Coorg and Chikmagalur micro-lots. The Indiranagar 100ft Road location is the editorial flagship — bigger menu, full-day kitchen, the city's best avocado toast. HSR location is for the work-from-coffee-shop tribe.
Address100ft Rd Indiranagar, HSR Layout
Hours7am–11pm daily
Average₹400 / coffee + bake
Book on Zomato →
Indiranagar · Direct-trade single-origin
Maverick & Farmer (Indiranagar)
For the pour-over snob. Owner Aman Sood sources every bean direct from a single Karnataka or Coorg farm — full chain visibility from picker to cup.
Smaller than Third Wave, more obsessive. Their Coorg Pearl Mountain single-origin is a cup most cities outside India can't replicate. Pair with their banana cake. Grab a bag of beans for home — they'll grind to your method (V60, AeroPress, French press) before you leave.
Address1217, 100 Feet Rd, Indiranagar
Hours9am–10pm daily
Average₹450 / coffee + bake
Book on Zomato →
City Four
Goa · beach-shack coffee, levelled up.
North Goa especially — Vagator, Anjuna, Assagao — has quietly built one of India's most interesting weekend café scenes.
Anjuna · All-day boho
Hideout (Anjuna)
A Mediterranean-meets-Goan all-day diner tucked into a back lane in Anjuna. The brunch is what you wish your Tribeca brunch had been.
Beautifully scrambled eggs with chorizo. Sourdough pancakes. A coffee programme that's quietly best in North Goa. Their iced cardamom latte is a Goa-specific drink that will follow you back home as a memory you can't recreate. Pair with a long Anjuna afternoon at the flea market or sunset at Curlies.
AddressVagator-Anjuna Rd, Anjuna
Hours8am–11pm daily
Average₹900 / brunch + coffee
Book on Zomato →
Assagao · Konkani breakfast
Café Vinayak (Assagao)
A Konkani institution that quietly serves the best fish curry rice breakfast in Goa, day after day, from a roadside shack that Goan locals consider sacred.
No specialty coffee here — this is a different kind of café. Goan hot chai (sweet, milky), pao with bhaji, fish curry rice for ₹250 by 11am. It's the café NRI parents take their grown kids to to teach them what real Goan food tastes like. Cash only, sit at the plastic chairs, expect 30-min wait at peak weekend.
AddressCalvim Junction, Assagao
Hours8am–10pm (closed Wed)
Average₹400 / Konkani breakfast
Find on Zomato →