Saint Petersburg Café Guide
I visited the city for the first time years ago and totally fell in love with, well, everything. Since I have visited regularly. It's a stunning mixture of history and modern, rough street corners next super posh high street shops and of course interesting coffee scene. Russia has been traditionally more tea then coffee country, and when 94% of people drink tea you could say it still is pretty tea concentrated nation. But statistics show that coffee consumption is getting bigger and bigger every year. I also believe that in big cities such St Pete and Moscow the coffee culture is already blooming really nicely. Here is my best picks from my last visit this fall.
Cafe 22:
This wonderful little café is near to the Newsky Prospect main shopping street. Its located on a small alley with little design shops as its neighbors. When you walk in you instantly feel like you have come to super high quality cafe. The decor is lovely and the master piece is definitely the moss wall covering one end of the whole cafe. It also makes the acoustics in this cafe really nice, its not noisy at all even when crowded.
They have nice way of presenting coffee as high quality and super premium. We drank a very fruity Kenyan and a Russian specialty the raf, a sweet foamed espresso based drink. Both were superb and as they said coffee was super high quality. Kind of Nordic style light roast for the filter but also the espresso was smooth and fruity. I can also highly recommend this place for breakfast or a snack as they have a many great options to choose from! If you want to get to the Cafe 22 mood you can listen their ready made dj sets at Mix Cloud.
Bonch:
One of the biggest tourist attractions in St. Pete is the St. Isaacs Cathedral and around the corner from the cathedral is a great attraction for coffee loving tourist; Bonch Cafe. This cafe is both super pretty but also serves really neat coffees. Filters are done with few different pour overs or regular drip, but they also have lots of espresso based drinks. The coffee they change the origins quite often, so don't hesitate to ask the staff for recommendations. They also serve breakfast, lunch, sweet cakes and pastries plus some sandwiches. All super fresh and tasty.
Ziferburg Time coffee:
This cafe is special as you don't actually pay for the coffee but for the time you spent in this lovely rustic palace. Coffee is great but the premises is the reason to visit this place. It's an old mansion with rugged baroque furniture, huge fire places and six meters high ceiling. When you enter you are given an old school alarm clock and the time you bought is set in. So all you have to do is relax and enjoy a cup of coffee, how perfect is that?
Coffee room:
Coffee room is a chain of cafes and they have few places around the town. We visited only one of the locations but passed by few of them and they all seemed really nice cozy. They serve mostly espresso based drinks and other milk based drinks such a lavender lattes, but also teas, juices and cold drinks.
I wouldn’t maybe call them specialty coffee cafe, but they have great lunch options really nice atmosphere and already that is enough reason to stop by.
Surf Cafe:
This is another chain of cafes, their places are super laid back and serve coffee from various origins. They have some snacks like cookies and croissants but mostly they are concentrated on coffee. Grab a latte and enjoy the beachy vibe before heading back to busy streets of St. Pete. Also check their Instagram, it’s very inspiring and fun.
Check also:
