12 of the Best Coffee Shops In Prague

The coffee shop concept is nothing new in Prague.

This is a city where activists and artists have shared important ideas while sipping coffee at cafes for more than three centuries. A few centenarian cafes remain vital to this day. However, you’ll likely bump into a tourist, as opposed to the next Kafka, if you visit one.

But, unlike the grand cafes of Vienna, not all of the famous Prague cafes are stuck in the past. Savvy cafes like Cafe Savoy have changed their coffee approach to serve věneček and větrník pastries with coffee that actually tastes good. But these aren’t the only cafes worth visiting in Prague.

In addition to its roster of classic cafes, the current chapter in Prague’s coffee story includes shops that source single-origin beans from local and international roasters. These more intimate cafes serve our drugs of choice – flat whites and pour overs, a situation that makes our hearts and taste buds happy.

Prague has great food too! Check out our Prague food favorites and our picks for the best Prague restaurants.

Specialty coffee wasn’t on our radar when we first visited Prague in 1995. If third wave coffee was in Prague back then, we neither looked for it nor found it. However, things were different when we returned two decades later in 2017. By then, Prague’s specialty coffee scene was burgeoning. We happily drank flat whites at two cafes and considered our coffee mission complete.

We were wrong. Those first flat whites were just the beginning of our Prague coffee mission. We’ve now sipped great coffee at more than a dozen Prague cafes as well as at tiny bakeries and bustling bistros.

As we’ve discovered through our on-the-ground research, some of the best Prague coffee shops are located in the touristic Old Town while others are of the beaten path in neighborhoods like Holešovice and Karlin.

These are our favorites coffee shops in Prague:

No hidden gem, the original EMA espresso bar is located in the center of the action in New Town (Nové Město) just a few blocks from the historic Cafe Imperial. However, despite the proximity of the two Prague cafes, EMA doesn’t serve heaping plates of traditional Czech food to a clientele of a certain generation.

Instead EMA’s award-winning baristas serve a variety of coffee drinks (think flat whites and espresso tonics) and pastries to a constant flow of students, professionals and traveling coffee drinkers. Many take their coffees to go while others pause at the cafe’s long communal table or at one of the smaller tables facing the cafe’s sweeping windows.

EMA Espresso Bar exclusively sourced its beans from local and international roasters when it opened in 2013,. While it still does that, Prague’s most popular coffee shop now roasts beans in its Palmkova location, called Alf & Bet, too. Slightly further afield and accessible by tram, Alfa & Bet also has a bakery where staff members bake sourdough breads and pastries.

Pro Tip
Pair your coffee with a kolach (sweet pastry) or butchy (sweet bun).

EMA Espresso Bar has multiple locations. We’ve visited the original cafe located at Na Florenci 1420/3, 110 00 Nové Město, Czechia multiple times.

Located inside a hidden courtyard at the former Vilímko publishing house, Super Tramp Coffee feels far from the maddening crowd despite its location just a kilometer from Old Town’s Prague Astronomical Clock. While tourists swarm to watch the famous clock’s hourly performance, coffee aficionados (and hipsters) hightail it up the alley to this hidden coffee oasis.

This coffee shop’s crowd skews young and local – a blend of artists, students and families. While there, we couldn’t help but notice a group of young mothers setting up shop with a parade of prams in the arch-lined courtyard.

No new kid on the Prague coffee block, Super Tramp has been open since 2015 while it’s ‘big brother’ I Need Coffee has been open since 2012. Both cafes serve modern specialty coffee drinks using beans sourced from quality roasters like Hungary’s Casino Mocca. We tried two during our visit – a flat white and a pink brew, plus a cookie filled with hazelnuts, cranberries and white chocolate.

While we found absolutely no fault with the flat white or the cookie, the uncontested winner was the pink brew. With a blend of cold brewed coffee, grapefruit juice and a splash of simple syrup, the pink brew may become our official summertime coffee drink.

Pro Tip
Order a cocktail or mocktail if you’re more into chillaxing than caffeinating.

Super Tramp Coffee is located at Opatovická 160, 110 00 Nové Město, Czechia.

Reminiscent of Bucharest coffee shops we encountered inside rustic, interbellic buildings, Café Letka has a big wooden farmer’s table, distressed walls, vintage chandeliers and a big pink mirror. Light streams through picture windows and pastries top the counter.

Just like our favorite Bucharest coffee shops, Café Letka serves specialty coffee using beans sourced from specialty coffee roasters. During our visit, those beans were sourced from Five Elephant Roastery.

While we can’t guarantee that Café Letka will use the same coffee beans in the future, we can confirm that the latte we drank was top notch. The same goes for the cinnamon bun, reminiscent of cinnamon buns we’ve previously eaten in America.

At night, Café Letka transitions from brunch and coffee to snacks and adult beverages. Options include cocktails, craft beer and Moravian wine.

Pro Tip
Check out Letec espresso bar in Holešovice. This Café Letka offshoot specializes in specialty coffee and Czech pastries.

Café Letka is located at Letohradská 44, 170 00 Praha 7-Letná, Czechia.

4. Onesip Coffee

Located on a quiet Old Town street, Onesip Coffee is compact with just a couple stools. But, despite its small space, this Prague cafe has everything necessary to craft good coffee.

These things include a sleek Kees van der Westen spirit espresso machine and coffee beans sourced from local roaster Candycane Coffee. Not coincidentally, Onesip’s owners, Adam Gaszczyk and Zdeněk Hýbl, are partners in the Prague roastery.

One sip was enough for us to know that Onesip Coffee was our kind of coffee shop.

To be clear, we didn’t stop at one sip of our flat whites nor did we just take one bite of the irresistible flaky croissant filled with tart berries and white chocolate that we shared. However, we did resist the temptation to buy pretty mugs sourced from Studio Arhoj, a ceramics shop that we’d previously visited in Copenhagen.

Pro Tip
Buy a bag of Candycane Coffee beans or capsules to enjoy later.

Onesip Coffee is located at Haštalská 755 /15, 110 00 Staré Město, Czechia.

Although Můj Šálek Kávy has been a fixture in the Karlin neighborhood for more than a decade, this Prague cafe remains fresh and current. It’s operated by Doubleshot, the pioneering Prague roastery that operates a second cafe, Místo, as well as a bakery called Sladké.

There’s clearly synergy in Doublehot’s business model. During our Můj Šálek Kávy visit, we drank a flat white crafted with Doubleshot beans and ate a slice of cheesecake baked by Sladké bakers. (See photo at top.) In an unrelated move, we also drank cider produced by Tátův Sad in nearby Líšnice.

Although it’s no longer the only coffee shop in Karlin, Můj Šálek Kávy remains popular thanks to its interior space that’s both colorful and comfortable. The cafe has additional outdoor seating during the warmer months.

Fun Fact
Můj Šálek Kávy translates to My Coffee Cup.

Muj Salek Kavy is located at Křižíkova 386/105, 186 00 Praha 8-Karlín, Czechia.

Dos Mundos is a cafe with Czech roots despite its Spanish name.

Though it seems odd on the surface, this name choice is a meaningful nod to the farms in Central America where Dos Mundos sources much of its green beans. The two worlds, while far apart geographically, come together where it matters most – in the mug.

Dos Mundos opened its Holešovice cafe in 2017, four years after it established its Vinohrady shop that doubles as a roastery. It’s a playful space with coffee graffiti on the walls and swings dangling from the ceiling.

We drank two flat whites during our visit. One was crafted with Colombian beans and the other with Guatemalan beans. Both were excellent. The same goes for our ridiculously delicious větrník pastry – a choux pastry sandwich, similar to a paris brest, that was filled with cream and topped with caramel.

Pro Tip
Order a věneček pastry or kremrole if you’re not a caramel fan.

Dos Mundos Cafe is located at 38, M. Horákové 600, Holešovice, 170 00 Praha 7, Czechia.

Navigating the crowds who convene in Prague’s Old Town Square makes us want to hit the proverbial pause button. This might mean a beer break for some people. For us, it means ducking into Pauseteria for a calming cup of coffee.

Located just a few blocks from Prague’s tourist ground zero, Pauseteria has been serving specialty coffee drinks, as well as all-day brunch dishes and desserts, since 2018. It was a great find that we accredit to our like-minded friends Angie and Jeremy. Thanks guys!

Pauseteria doesn’t roast its own beans. It also doesn’t source beans from countries like Germany and Denmark. Instead, the central Prague cafe exclusively uses beans roasted by Czech roasters.

We opted to drink cold brew during our warm spring day visit. Brewed with blonde beans roasted by the award-winning Fiftybeans in Brno, it was a good choice that energized us to get back into the fray.

Pro Tip
Order a pastry to go with your coffee if you need an extra pick-me-up. The sugar and caffeine combo should power you power you through dinner.

Pauseteria is located at U Radnice 11/4, 110 00 Josefov, Czechia.

It would be easy to rule out the coffee program at Eska. Its cafe is part of a bakery and there’s a restaurant upstairs. And, yet, Eska is the venue that we returned to for repeat coffee performances during our most recent Prague visit. But why?

Part of Eska’s coffee appeal is its array of Czech pastries. We tried several and they were all great. (The kremrole and plum-filled butchy were our favorites.) Then there’s its space in a former factory which adds a cool vibe to the coffee drinking experience.

The Ambiente Restaurant Group hasn’t spared expense with Eska’s coffee operation. The company bought a Black Eagle espresso machine and purchases beans from Czech roaster Nordbeans on an ongoing basis. Their investment was apparent in every cup of coffee we drank.

Though we started multiple mornings with Eska’s flat whites, we also tried the cafe’s filtered coffee for ‘research purposes’. Brewed with a Hario V60, the filtered coffee was just as good as the flat whites. Maybe even better.

Pro Tip
Don’t skip the pastries when you drink coffee at Eska. Seriously. Don’t skip them.

Eska is located at Pernerova 49, 186 00 Karlín, Czechia.

Ordering coffee at Ye’s kafe | studio is simple thanks to a menu that’s separated into three sections -black, white and other. The ‘black’ section includes espresso and filtered coffee drinks. The ‘white’ section features milky espresso drinks. The ‘other’ section includes beer, wine and lemonade.

We ordered from the ‘white’ section of the menu. We had just one regret as we sipped our flat whites while lounging on the cafe’s comfortable red retro furniture – we wished that we were hungry enough to eat a pastry too.

Pro Tip
Check for seasonal specials before you place your order. Affogato may be on offer if the weather odds are in your favor.

Ye’s kafe | studio is located at Letenské nám. 749/5, 170 00 Praha 7-Holešovice, Czechia.

While it would be impossible to forget Urban Café’s urban location in the center of Prague’s New Town hubbub, the cafe achieves a bucolic element thanks to its abundance of plants and vines. But the greenery is just decoration – the real action occurs in the menu.

This menu includes all of the expected third wave coffee drinks plus tea, hot chocolate, lemonade and wine. As a bonus, it includes sweet pastries and bubbly Prosecco too.

We’re always curious to discover what beans are used to craft our flat whites. Though we’d heard that Urban Café’s baristas craft coffee drinks with beans sourced from Bonanza and Fjord, both in Germany, that was wasn’t the case on the day of our visit. Instead, the cafe crafted our flat whites with Coffee Collective beans sourced from Denmark. We didn’t complain. The coffee was great.

Pro Tip
Grab a seat at Urban Cafe’s communal table if you plan to linger with your drink.

Urban Café is located at 37, Na Poříčí 1061, Nové Město, 110 00 Praha, Czechia.

True confession: We went to Etapa for brunch, not specialty coffee. But, in a pleasant turn of events, we accomplished two goals during our mid-morning visit. Not only did we eat tasty egg dishes, but we also drank excellent flat whites.

Etapa, opened by Petr Ogurcak and Gabi Ogurcakova in 2020, is a relatively recent addition to the Karlin food and coffee scene with a twist. The duo brought something different to the table – they’re food bloggers. And, so it seems, they’re specialty coffee drinkers too.

Crafted with beans sourced from Prague’s Rusty Nails Coffee Roasters, our Etapa flat whites rivaled many of the flat whites we sipped at dedicated Prague coffee shops. However, Etapa’s flat whites stood out since they contributed to a winner of a meal.

Pro Tip
Pair your Etapa coffee with a freshly baked pastry if you’re not up for a meal during your visit.

Etapa is located at Urxova 479/6, 186 00 Karlín, Czechia.

Pastacaffé isn’t a typical Prague specialty coffee shop. Instead, it’s an Italian-style coffee bar that serves drinks crafted with Tonino Lamborgini beans as well as breakfast dishes, pastas and desserts. And, to address the elephant in the cafe, Tonino Lamborghini was founded by a member of the family famous for its Emilia-Romagna sports cars and less famous for its tractors.

We enjoyed our Caramel Latte at Pastacaffé so much in 2017 that we returned years later and drank another. It was just as good as we remembered despite the multi-year gap.

Pro Tip
Pastacaffé is an ideal spot for a coffee break after touring the nearby Spanish Synagogue and Old Jewish Cemetery. You can visit both sites on your own or during a Jewish Quarter Walking Tour.

Pastacaffé is located at Vězeňská 141/1, 110 00 Josefov, Czechia.

Consider visiting the following Prague coffee shops if your thirst for specialty coffee exceeds the dozen featured in this guide:

Thirsty For More Coffee In Europe?