15 Best Cafes in Tbilisi

The coffee gets you in before noon and the bar on site keeps the same table useful at 10 PM. It's a casual, cosy room in Sololaki built for 3 things at once: working with a laptop, meeting friends, and sitting down to a full meal. Come here when your group wants brunch, someone wants lunch and someone else only wants a drink. Doors open at 10 AM and close at 11 PM, 7 days a week, and Google puts the spend at 20 to 30 GEL.

Classical music turns up in 20 Google reviews here, ahead of any single thing on the menu, and a record player is part of the furniture. It's a women-owned cafe on Lado Asatiani, quiet enough for a laptop and licensed enough for a glass of wine with the cake. Dogs are allowed and the Wi-Fi is free, which covers most of what a long afternoon needs. It runs 10 AM to 8 PM every day, takes reservations, and Google puts a visit at 10 to 20 GEL.

Most coffee shops pick a roaster and stay with it. This one changes the list daily: 2 beans for espresso and 5 to 10 for filter, pulled from local and international roasters. Everything is brewed by hand, down to a manual espresso machine and hand grinders, which is why the queue moves at its own pace. It's a small room on Arnold Chikobava with a shelf of Hario and AeroPress kit for sale, and it shuts at 7 PM most days and 6 PM on Sunday. Come with time, not with a train to catch.

The dough is baked in front of you before anyone eats it, which is the whole business model. It's a chimney cake shop working the Prague trdelník: yeast dough baked gold, rolled in caramelised sugar, cinnamon or nuts, then filled with chocolate, cream, fruit or ice cream. The room is casual and quiet, and the crowd is students, groups and visitors, with a kids' menu and high chairs for the other kind of group. Doors stay open 11 AM to 2 AM, 7 days a week, so the late slot is genuinely late.

This is the cafe that opens before the city does. Doors at 7:30 AM, 7 days a week, and the lights stay on until 11 PM. The garden is the part 5 Google reviews single out, and the place sits across from the metro on Merab Kostava. The counter runs from specialty coffee and organic matcha through German cocoa and craft beer to cocktails, and the same people will sell you a tour of Kazbegi or a lift to the airport.

Small is the point here. You take the whole shop in from the doorway, and the person pulling your shot is the one who owns the place. 25 Google reviews mention the owner, which is more than mention any single drink. It sits on Simon Kandelaki in Saburtalo, dogs are welcome by the listing's own description, and it runs 9 AM to 8 PM, with an 11 AM start on Sunday. Come for one careful cup, not for a table to spread work across.

You come for coffee and leave having eaten a schnitzel. That is the shape of the menu here: breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner on one list, with syrniki and truffle eggs at one end and schnitzel and a mushroom sandwich at the other. There's a courtyard, which is the seat to ask for. It's casual, it takes groups, kids and dogs, and it stays open 10 AM to 10 PM, 7 days a week. Desserts are a separate argument entirely.

It opens at 9 AM, which one reviewer points out is an hour before most places around it. The rest of the day it works as a patisserie: French-inspired desserts, cakes and pastries out of its own kitchen, with specialty coffee next to them. The room is quiet and the tables are small, so 6 of you is not the move. There's outdoor seating for warm days, wine and small plates for later, and it runs to 9 PM every day.

The door on Liberty Square gives away nothing about the cafe underneath it, which is half the fun. One reviewer walked in expecting somewhere small and went down the stairs into a much bigger room. Google tags it casual, cosy and quiet, with families and groups in it and free Wi-Fi if you are staying put. Come here when you want breakfast in the centre of town and have booked nothing. It opens at 9 AM, runs to 3 AM on Fridays and Saturdays, and shuts on Sundays.

Beanbourbon has 2 tables, so the coffee carries the whole thing. It's a specialty coffee shop on Ovanes Tumaniani St that roasts what it pours. One reviewer describes a family operation, mother and daughter behind the bar and the father in on the roasting, in very small batches. Google tags the room casual, cosy and trendy, and there is outdoor seating when the tables inside are taken. This is a stop rather than a session. It opens 8:30 AM to 7 PM, 7 days a week.

It is 9 PM, you want coffee and not a nightcap, and Walkers keeps the machine running until 11 PM, 7 days a week. Its own description sets out the idea plainly: French pastry, Italian espresso and an aperitivo hour, with the coffee treated as the reason people meet at all. There is outdoor seating on Chavchavadze and a room inside. The listing files it as a cocktail bar and a wine bar too, so you can have both.

Most coffee shops treat matcha as the order you make when you are not having coffee. Rituals puts it first. It's a coffee shop on Tsinamdzghvrishvili St that also runs a pilates and yoga studio on daily and monthly passes, so the counter and the studio share a door. Matcha comes up 18 times in its review topics, cosy spot 7 times. It suits a weekday 3 PM when you want nobody hurrying you. It opens 9 AM to 8 PM, every day.

Shavi is a roastery before it is a cafe: its listing runs coffee shop, coffee roastery and coffee wholesaler. The original shop on Zandukeli St is where you drink the results, 8 AM to 9 PM every day. Google tags it casual, cosy and quiet, with a fireplace, free Wi-Fi, a crowd of students and tourists, and dogs allowed inside. One reviewer counts power outlets everywhere and not many seats, which tells you to come early if the afternoon is a working one.

Fika is not a meal. It's a pause with a coffee and something sweet in it, and this family-run Swedish cafe on Kutateladze St builds its day around that idea. Its own description asks little more of you than to sit, eat a dessert and share the time. Reviewers name the cinnamon buns 16 times and the meatballs 22, which is the cafe in 2 numbers. Come on a weekday afternoon, because it opens at 1 PM, closes at 7, and does not open at weekends.

Coffee Space is a counter you find because it is on your way, then keep using on purpose. It's a small, minimalist coffee shop on Kazbegi Ave near the metro, with power outlets for the people who settle in and baristas who will switch language to take your order. One reviewer warns there are very few seats and almost no desserts, so treat it as a counter rather than a cafe. Weekdays start at 8 AM, weekends at 10, and everything stops at 8 PM.