Good Cup · 10 November 2026
Pick a café rated Outstanding or Excellent in a fully analysed city, look at who is behind the bar and whose coffee they pour, and check that it is open when you get there.
Start from the city guide, not the map. In a fully analysed city the guide puts Outstanding and Excellent cafés first, so the short list is already made. London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lisbon, Prague, Copenhagen and Warsaw are among the cities we have finished.
Open the café page and look at the team. The barista has more influence on your cup than anything else, and a café with a titled barista is the safest bet: 94 % of our Outstanding cafés have one.
Then look at the roaster. It does not matter whether the café roasts its own coffee or brings in guest roasters; what matters is how good that roaster is. The café page shows which roasters it pours and their level.
Order the coffee the café is proud of. At a roaster's own bar, ask for the filter of the day or the single origin on espresso. At a multi-roaster bar, ask which guest roaster is on.
Check opening hours on the day you go. Specialty cafés open early and close early, often by mid-afternoon. On Good Cup the map can show only cafés open now, and each café page opens the route in Google Maps.