Options include BUNA, Café Avellaneda, and Camino a Comala. Closing times vary by day, so check each café’s hours before heading out.
BUNA
BUNA's Roma branch sits on Orizaba a short walk from Plaza Rio de Janeiro, with small sidewalk tables, a compact counter, and a pastry-and-beans setup that reads clearly from the door. It is shortlisted because it gives Roma Norte something more grounded than another polished cafe: a stop where Mexican coffee is the main point, and where a quick drink still feels specific.
BUNA · Roma Norte
Come for the drinks first. The menu is tighter and better than generic cafe sprawl: espresso, cortado, flat white, filtrado, cold brew, cafe de olla, and Cafechata, BUNA's cold brew-horchata drink that earns its place as the signature order. The retail side matters too. Bags of Mexican coffee, chocolate, and pantry goods make it easy to leave with something beyond the cup.
Café Avellaneda sits just off Coyoacán’s central flow on Higuera, close enough to Casa Azul for a museum-day detour but too small and focused to feel like a tourist convenience. The room is a narrow coffee bar with turquoise walls, a squirrel motif, five stools at the counter, a couple of small tables, and a bench by the entrance. That cramped scale is the point: Avellaneda is one of Mexico City’s strongest shortlist stops because it turns a tiny Coyoacán room into a serious showcase for Mexican coffee.
Café Avellaneda · Coyoacán
The coffee program is why you make time for it. Avellaneda works with Mexican coffees from origins such as Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Veracruz, with espresso and milk drinks alongside slower methods including V60, Kalita, Aeropress, French press, cold brew, and other filter preparations. The experience is unusually close-range: you can sit at the bar, talk through beans and brew methods, and watch the extraction rather than simply order from a board.
Camino a Comala sits on Miguel E. Schultz in San Rafael, just northwest of Mexico City's historic centre. Inside, books, plants, warm decoration, low jazz, and closely set tables make it a neighbourhood room rather than a high-speed espresso counter. People settle in over breakfast, open a laptop, or read with a second coffee; come when you can give the place more than a quick takeaway stop.
Camino a Comala · San Rafael
The house espresso comes from Finca Hamburgo in Tapachula, Chiapas, with a profile built around citrus acidity and sweetness. The wider coffee list moves among Mexican origins including Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Nayarit, so the bar has more range than a single dependable milk-drink blend. A flat white is the straightforward order; an espresso followed by a filter shows the contrast between the house coffee and rotating brewed lots.
Almanegra Café on Zacatecas is the Roma Norte address to use when you want coffee to be the whole point. The sign is easy to miss among the older facades, and the room keeps the visit compact: white walls, a close counter, a few seats, a back patio, and a pace that feels more deliberate than loungy. The judgment is simple: come for careful espresso, filter, or cold brew, then put breakfast plans somewhere else.
Almanegra Café · Roma Norte
The bar is built around focused cups rather than a wide cafe menu. Expect espresso, flat whites, cappuccinos, americanos, filtered coffee, and cold brew, with baristas able to steer you through origin and method instead of just taking an order. Almanegra's own shelves make the intent clear too: roasted beans from Mexican and international producers, brewing gear, scales, grinders, and enough retail coffee to make the stop useful even when you are not staying.
Cardinal Casa de Café on Córdoba feels like a small Roma Norte coffee house rather than a quick bar: warm tables, quieter conversation, a pastry case, outdoor seats when the evening softens, and enough brew-method theatre to make a neighbour's order catch your eye. It is a place for sitting with a cup, not just collecting one.
Cardinal Casa de Café · Roma Norte
Coffee is the anchor. Espresso and milk drinks cover the easy order, but the manual methods are what sharpen the stop: Chemex, V60, Kalita, Aeropress and other filtered routes, often served with enough care that the brewing becomes part of the table's attention. If you want the room at its most specific, order filter and give it time.
Exploradores de Café occupies the ground floor of Punta Poniente on Avenida Santa Fe, beside Parque La Mexicana on the western edge of Mexico City. Coffee plants, the working roaster, a tasting room, shelves of brewing equipment, and an espresso bar make the room feel closer to an open coffee workshop than a conventional neighbourhood cafe.
Exploradores de Café · Santa Fe
The house roasting programme deliberately spans more than one style. Washed coffees are developed for body in espresso and milk drinks; naturally processed and more experimental lots are pushed toward brighter filter cups; the most delicate Mexican coffees receive lighter treatment to preserve floral character. At the bar, the official brief is a classic Italian drinks menu handled with a modern specialty-coffee approach. Ask which coffee best fits the way you want to drink it rather than defaulting to the most expensive bag.
Av. Santa Fe 596 PB local 3, Lomas de Santa Fe, Contadero, Cuajimalpa de Morelos, 05348 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico Read our full review
· Directions ↗
Quentin Café
On Avenida Álvaro Obregón, Quentin Café feels like a compact Roma Norte coffee room with front windows, a narrow bar, and enough street life outside to keep the room moving without turning it frantic. The design is tidy rather than flashy: warm finishes, plants, a small footprint, and the counter always close enough to stay part of the visit.
Quentin Café · Roma Norte
Espresso is the centre of gravity here. Shots are clean and direct, and milk drinks keep the same tidy line rather than drifting into sweetness for its own sake. The shop does not try to impress with density or theatre; it wins on clarity, which is the more interesting move in a city full of louder coffee bars.
Drip Specialty Coffee occupies a compact room on Guadalajara in Roma Norte, a central neighbourhood west of Mexico City's historic centre. The dark interior, small upstairs pocket, and sidewalk benches make it easy to choose between a quick cup and a short sit; the coffee bar, bags on the shelf, and conversation with the barista set the agenda as soon as you enter.
Drip Specialty Coffee · Roma Norte
Espresso drinks cover the easy visit: cappuccino, flat white, mocha, cold brew, dirty chai, and matcha have all been part of the working menu. The coffee style is approachable, with balanced milk drinks alongside fruitier or more floral lots. Drip is not trying to turn every order into a tasting session, but the staff can make the bean choice legible when you want more detail.
Café Tormenta is a coffee counter before it is a room: a grey metal puesto on the corner of Puebla and Mérida, with the bar, grinder, pastry case, small stools, and record player all pressed close to the street. Roma Norte sits just west of Mexico City's historic centre, and its pavement traffic becomes part of the visit while you order.
Café Tormenta · Roma Norte
The current house line centres coffee from Veracruz, sharpening the all-Mexican sourcing that has defined Tormenta from the start. Espresso, cappuccino, flat white, and café de olla give the menu a familiar base, with the barista and single machine in full view. Start with espresso or café de olla if the beans are the priority; this is a focused counter, not a long list of manual brews.
Kiyo Café puts its Mexico City pour-over bar behind a small grey window on Marsella, a calm central street that works well when you want a focused coffee stop between museums, galleries, and a walk through Juárez. The counter, pastry case, street tables, and shade trees make the Marsella address feel closer to a coffee stop than a full cafe, which suits the menu: order, wait, sit outside if a table is free, and let the cup take the time it needs.
Kiyo Café · Juárez
Espresso covers the quick order, while milk drinks, matcha latte, golden milk, salted mocha, cold brew, and seasonal specials make the short menu broader than the room suggests. The creative drinks earn their space, but the coffee bar is strongest when the bean still leads the order.
