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The Best Japanese Cafes in Melbourne Right Now
From matcha to milk bread and everything inbetween, these are the best Japanese cafes in Melbourne that you need to try ASAP.
Melbourne’s best Japanese cafes include CIBI in Collingwood for traditional breakfast, Suupaa in Cremorne for its irreverent take on the konbini, Hikari in the CBD for single-origin Japanese tea and coffee, and Hareruya Pantry for bento followed, quite correctly, by mochi-wrapped gelato. Across the city, teishoku, omusubi, shokupan and sandos have become as much a part of the daytime vernacular as flat whites and eggs on toast.
Perhaps that should come as no surprise. Melbourne’s long fascination with Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka has moved well beyond ramen pilgrimages and late-night sushi. Japanese cafe culture has found its own Melbourne accent: rice shaped by hand in Brunswick, matcha whisked on Swanston Street, shokupan cooling in North Melbourne and breakfast trays arriving one small dish at a time in Collingwood.
Alongside the city’s excellent Japanese restaurants, these are the cafes making the morning shift particularly worth paying attention to.
Attakai
Attakai has made itself very at home on Bouverie Street, with chef-made sandos, shokupan and serious matcha giving Carlton another excellent Japanese cafe to claim. Tonkatsu, chashu and wafu steak appear alongside curry omelette and hotcakes, while ceremonial-grade matcha runs from classic lattes to strawberry versions. The room is warm and pared-back, the food has proper heft, and a newer Collins Street sibling means the CBD now gets a taste too.
168–170 Bouverie Street, Carlton
260 Collins Street, Melbourne
CIBI
CIBI has been showing Melbourne the pleasures of a Japanese breakfast since 2008. The signature plate, drawn from co-founder Meg Tanaka’s grandmother’s cooking, gathers grilled salmon, tamagoyaki, seasonal vegetables, rice and miso soup into one deeply satisfying morning ritual. Stay for organic Japanese green tea and yuzu pound cake, then wander the adjoining grocer and design store for ceramics, pantry staples and beautiful household things. Few Melbourne cafes make breakfast, shopping and pottering about dovetail quite so happily.
33–39 Keele Street, Collingwood
Suupaa
Suupaa takes the Japanese konbini and sends it through the particular imagination of the Future Future team. Grab an onigiri and run, or stay for Suupaachiki fried chicken, black-garlic tan tan, a tempura mushroom sando or Berkshire pork tonkatsu sharpened with Vegemite and red miso. Even the drinks refuse to play conventionally: banana cold brew, peach-oolong iced tea and matcha under a Milo cloud. Cremorne’s lunch hour has rarely had this much personality.
Shop 1/65 Dover Street, Cremorne
Tofu Shoten
One soybean seems to live several lives inside Tofu Shoten. Sava Goto makes the tofu herself, then lets very little go to waste: soy milk becomes pandan and black-sesame drinks, okara finds its way into biscuit sandos, and leftover tofu becomes wonderfully chewy doughnuts dusted with kinako or black sesame. Fresh, smoked and fried tofu waits in the cabinet for dinner later. There are no tables here; Saxon Street gets the pleasure of people wandering off with warm paper bags instead.
6B Saxon Street, Brunswick
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Le Bajo Milkbar
Le Bajo Milkbar has the peculiar charm of a Japanese kissaten dropped into an old Australian milk bar, then given room to breathe inside a sprawling North Melbourne warehouse. The shokupan is baked in-house and put to excellent use: chicken katsu sandos, ebi sandos, thick toast with mentaiko, and fruit sandos layered with cream and whatever is best that week. Japanese tea, sponge cake and coffee roasted on site round things out.
8–14 Howard Street, North Melbourne
Chooka’s
Chooka’s occupies a rather lovely corner of the old Brunswick Market, all ivy, brick arches and the comforting business of rice being shaped by hand. The omusubi are reason enough to go: salmon and ikura, ginger pork, mentaiko mayo, yuzu miso. Then there is beef curry, soboro don, black sesame Basque cheesecake and matcha fondant, plus an excellent iced strawberry matcha.
1 Ballarat Street, Brunswick
Miyama
At Miyama, Japanese cafe culture provides a surprisingly calm escape from the churn of Melbourne Central. The signature Oishi Teishoku arrives as a generous spread of teriyaki chicken, onigiri, inari, ajitsuke tamago and miso soup, while saba ochazuke and Japanese curry make equally convincing lunch orders. Then there’s matcha, hojicha and a pastry cabinet built around house-made sweets. Save space for the strawberry shortcake; its feather-light cream has been part of Miyama’s appeal from day one.
Level 2/300 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Operator San
Operator San is what happens when Melbourne brunch gets a Tokyo-coded remix. Sitting near Queen Victoria Market, this CBD cafe goes big on katsu curry Benedict, wagyu sandos, mentaiko udon and breakfast ramen, with strawberry mochi waffles and black sesame cheesecake waiting on the sweet side. Drinks are half the fun: ceremonial matcha, hojicha, Uji sencha and playful specials sit beside Code Black coffee. Come hungry; this is not the place for a timid little pastry.
121 Therry Street, Melbourne
Haiku
Haiku is one of Camberwell’s best Japanese cafes, moving from brunch into izakaya territory three nights a week. By day, the menu runs through teishoku sets, tuna-corn toasties, cold soba, Japanese curry and matcha, hojicha and genmaicha drinks. From Thursday to Saturday, Haiku Kuro takes over with yakitori, gyoza, sashimi, udon and small plates built for sharing. Next door, Haiku Future stocks shokupan, bento and Japanese pantry staples for the trip home.
1161 Toorak Road, Camberwell
Matta
Matta has a menu that makes breakfast feel pleasantly unmoored from the usual rules. Red miso mushrooms disappear into a soft omelette; curry omelette rice arrives glossy and deeply savoury; akamiso tsuke udon and the cult creamy udon carbonara make a convincing argument for staying through lunch. Then the sandos: pork katsu, ebi katsu, egg and potato salad, all pressed into pillowy shokupan. Matcha and house-made hojicha keep things grounded. Balwyn North and Blackburn North are very lucky indeed.
55 Katrina Street, Blackburn North
335 Balwyn Road, Balwyn North
Hikari
Across from the State Library, Hikari is a lovely little interruption to Swanston Street. Some of Melbourne’s best matcha is hand-whisked here using premium single-origin tea from Kyoto, while coffee reaches further into Japan through partnerships with Kurasu and Onibus. The yuzu coffee spritz remains essential: cold brew, Kochi yuzu and sparkling water, sharp and wonderfully refreshing. Japanese ceramics and Hirota glassware line the timber shelves, making it a scooch too easy to leave carrying more than a latte.
317 Swanston Street, Melbourne
317 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Moon Mart
Moon Mart has settled beautifully into South Melbourne after moving from West Melbourne in 2024. Eun Hee An and Mei Onsamlee’s Korean-Japanese cafe still serves the favourites that built its following, including bulgogi breakfast sausage muffins and okonomiyaki hash browns, alongside newer dishes such as unagi katsu sandos, ochazuke and tonkatsu rice sets. Premium Uji matcha comes straight or strawberry-spiked, while shelves of house-made condiments and pantry goods keep the original convenience-store spirit alive on the Clarendon Street shelves today.
315 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne
KOME Eatery
Beneath the glass towers of Collins Street, KOME Eatery makes lunch feel like a small reprieve. Rice runs through everything: onigiri, ochazuke, donburi, teishoku and Japanese curry, including a particularly good chicken katsu version with golden crumb and plenty of sauce. The torched aburi salmon is another strong order, followed by cloud matcha if the afternoon allows. Outside, Docklands keeps rushing past. KOME seems happily uninterested in joining it.
Shop 4/845 Collins Street, Docklands
Hareruya Pantry
Hareruya Pantry understands that bento should probably be followed by gelato. Onigiri, osakana sets and neatly packed lunches make an easy case for crossing to Lincoln Square, while dessert waits back at the counter: Japanese-flavoured gelato tucked into soft mochi or crisp monaka wafers. The Carlton original suits a park lunch; Somerset Place feels more like a city discovery. Whichever door you choose, save room for something cold, chewy and sweet on the way out.
27 Somerset Place, Melbourne
15–17 Lincoln Square South, Carlton
Ima Asa Yoru
Morning and evening live quite differently at Ima Asa Yoru. Daylight through the tall Nightingale Village windows calls for teishoku: grilled market fish, rice, miso soup, pickles and the day’s little okazu, each occupying its own dish. Later, the paper lanterns glow and the room shifts towards sake, cold beer and izakaya plates. There is something pleasing about a restaurant built around the passing of the day rather than a single meal. Brunswick gets both versions.
1 Duckett Street, Brunswick
ILZA
ILZA has spread rather happily across Melbourne, taking Japanese home cooking along for the ride. Katsu sandos arrive thick and crisp, curry udon sometimes comes crowned with a cheeseburger, and rice bowls run from salmon to chicken aburi. Then there are the drinks: strawberry matcha, orange lattes and the wonderfully improbable (read: magically delicious) peanut-butter latte.
The newest Seddon address joins Docklands, the CBD, Box Hill South and Nunawading, which suggests Melbourne’s relationship with ILZA has moved well beyond a casual crush.
Multiple locations across Melbourne
Still hungry? Continue through Melbourne’s best Japanese restaurants and sushi trains, or follow the matcha trail through more of the city’s best cafes.
