Coffee @

Coffee @ ... Underground Coffee Company

Fusing industrial funk with a science lab vibe, Underground Coffee Company’s mothership Underground HQ and roastery wears its signature coffee cool and bad assery on its sleeve.The iconic second home (following the earthquakes) of the city’s only hot air roaster is easy to spot with the sun shining off its all-glass Durham Street frontage and its eye-arresting street art mural, courtesy of Buff Monster (look for the silver fern flag-waving pink Cyclops ice-cream).Inside, buzz-inducing blends, air-roasted to perfection on the daily, are dispensed by a retro-glam espresso machine and flanked by curved steel tables, serpentine shiny copper piping, exposed bessa blocks, mad-professorial cold-drip coffee glassware, numerous exotic plants, and the industrial heft of hard-core coffee wares.It’s a warehouse conversion designed with a ‘mi casa, su casa’ ethos that invites exploring – particularly the engine room where, mercifully muffled by safety glass, a 35kg Sivetz Hot Air Roaster fills the space...

MADE Espresso Bar

‘Honest, wholesome, and simple’ are the three key words for MADE Espresso Bar - the latest coffee spot to open in the city. Located within Warren & Mahoney House, its entrance can be found on Cashel Street (that’s if your nose hasn’t already sniffed-out the Hummingbird Coffee along with sweet and savoury treats). Once you’ve admired the beautiful interior that owners Kate Bloomfield and Michelle Burns have created for their small but funky café, and are greeted with their friendly smiles, you'll inevitably lock eyes on the cabinet, where you'll find an array of colourful salads, hearty pasties, fresh sandwiches, house-made Afghans and banana loaf. Go on, indulge – we won’t tell!   MADE Espresso Bar 254 Montreal Street03 379 2592www.madeespressobar.co.nz...

Pepperberry Café & Florist

Walk into Christchurch’s Pepperberry Café & Florist and you’re greeted by the intoxicating aromatic trifecta of home-baked goodies, freshly brewed coffee and fragrant, fresh-cut flowers. Perched on the busy corner of Bealey Avenue and Colombo Street, this sun-drenched hip café/florist hybrid is a veritable urban oasis where mother and daughter team Trish and Letty Hamilton have been combining their passions for killer café fare and coffee (Trish) and floristry (Letty) with a funky line of giftware since 2011. Now an institution on the city’s café scene (even Prime Minister John Key is a fan), it’s not uncommon to find those in the know queuing at Pepperberry for a precision-made Hummingbird Coffee to enjoy alongside one of Trish’s fresh-from-the-oven muffins, scones and slices, made on site. (FYI, the Rocky Road is next level decadence.) A perusal of the gourmet cabinet fare sees golden homemade Cornish pasties sitting alongside a selection of...

Cafés of Christchurch

Christchurch’s post-quake café scene is booming, and there’s never been a better time to venture out, try something new, and discover another fave haunt to down a flat white and a couple of yummo morsels. From the tried-and-true institutions that are still going strong to hipster hangouts, Sunday-drive destinations to throw into the GPS, ‘new Christchurch’ pop-ups and a bit of old-world elegance (pinky finger off that teacup!), there’s a host of options to suit your preferences, or even just your mood.Sure, it’s good to support your local café where they know your name and start fixing your morning coffee when they clock you walking through the door. But sometimes you need to share the love – how else will you discover that to-die-for crazy new muffin combo or exotic new blend on the scene? Help is at hand – spin the Cityscape café compass and find a new place or...

Top hole, old bean - Clockwork Emporium is a cafe with a difference

Rumour has it that a pocket of space-time instability has created a new trans-temporal café and emporium in our fair city, bringing together wondrous inventions from an alternate Steam-powered Victorian future (as well as tapping into the creative spark of post-earthquake Christchurch). Central to the café is a steaming, clunking contraption. Combining the wonders of Steam, mechanical clockwork ingenuity and the electrical wonders pioneered by the great Nicolai Tesla himself, this fantastic device converts humble, ground beans into a potent, aromatic elixir which inspires creativity, banishes lethargy and energises the very vigour of one’s being (here in our timeline, we call it coffee). Trophies brought back from a different time by the proprietors line the premises. A variety of market goods sourced along the length and breadth of the space-time continuum are available for your browsing pleasures and purchase in the Emporium, including items of the highest fashion for men and ladies alike,...

Dose Diner

Looking for great food or just a primo coffee in an awesome atmosphere? Get your hungry, caffeine-deprived self into Dose Diner for a latte and a look. Brought to you by the good folks behind Dose Café in Tuam Street (and the Sushi Container in Re:START), Dose Diner at is now smashing out bodacious breakfasts, tasty lunches and delectable Japanese food for dinner at its Blenheim Road digs. Set among industrial chic that embraces what we might be able to start calling The Rebuild Style, you’ll find plenty of industrial furniture, recycled timber, and awesome paint wash and graffiti artwork (by local street artist Yikes, featured in the RISE Street Art Festival exhibition in Canterbury Museum) to feast your eyes on. Equally perfect for sharing a chicken katsu don buri with your significant other or bowling up for eggs benny for Sunday brunch with the gang in tow, add coffee done...

Enhance your karma at Ris’tretto with suspended coffee

The Ris'tretto café at the top end of Barbadoes Street (near Edgeware Road, opposite St Albans Park) has been an early and proud Christchurch champion of the glowing global movement / initiative of suspended coffee. Suspended coffee began as a good-will tradition in Naples (where by some accounts, it has been occurring for over a hundred years), before more recently becoming a popular movement throughout the rest of Italy, and subsequently (and increasingly) all over the world. Customers who wish to participate/donate and put a bit of kindness into their day simply pay for two coffees – one for themselves, and another which is held “suspended” for anyone that comes in and asks for one, allowing Ris'tretto to provide a free of coffee to someone who deserves a pick me up. It's simple initiative to provide a coffee for someone in need or who can’t easily afford the little luxury of...

50 Bistro

Need a coffee stop which has just the right mix of sophistication and you’re-still-welcome-if-you’re-wearing-jeans casual? Yes, Christchurch does still offer just such a place – 50 Bistro at The George Hotel. Yes, The George is a super-stylish luxury hotel and, yes, in 2012 it was again recognised as 'New Zealand’s #1 City Hotel' in Travel + Leisure’s World's Best Awards, but 50 Bistro is a relaxed and welcoming spot whether it’s a business meeting, coffee with friends or romantic tête a tête on the cards. The interior is suitably sleek, with a magnificent orange onyx wall lending a warm glow and views out to Hagley Park across the road. There’s a comfortable outdoor area too. And the coffee? Well, yes, the coffee is superb. Beautifully presented, as you’d expect in surroundings such as these, and perfectly made. Whoever you’re looking to impress on your coffee date, 50 Bistro will do the...