A multi-award-winning steampunk roastery in central Cape Town serving genuinely world-class coffee for the price of an ordinary cup — the cheapest five-star experience in the city. Order the Resurrection blend as a flat white.
- —A Victorian-warehouse coffee roastery and café on Buitenkant Street, kitted out floor-to-ceiling in steampunk brass, gears, and a hulking vintage roaster.
- —It’s been called the best coffee shop in the world, yet a coffee still costs roughly what a coffee costs — pure Five-Star Math: a top-tier experience priced like an everyday one.
- —The move: a flat white made with their Resurrection blend. Go before the morning rush if you want a seat near the roaster.
What’s it like?
This is the rare place where the room and the coffee are both the reason to go. They’ve turned an old three-storey Victorian warehouse into a working roastery dressed in brass piping, leather, and clockwork — the kind of interior other cities would charge a cover for. The centrepiece is a gargantuan vintage roasting machine, and the whole space is built around it like a cathedral around an altar. The genius of it, for our purposes, is that none of that theatre lands on the bill. You’re paying for a cup of coffee; you’re getting a destination. We ended up back more than once even though it was well out of our way — partly for the coffee, partly just to keep catching details in the room we’d missed the time before.
What should I order?
Coffee first — that’s the whole point. Their Resurrection blend is the signature, and a flat white is the clean way to taste what the fuss is about. If you want the local-knowledge order, ask for the Battle Brew or one of their Potion coffees. Hungry? The kitchen is more than a token afterthought — the avocado toast, eggs benedict, and the almond croissant all get singled out — but the coffee is the thing you’ll remember.
Featured in: The Five-Star Math (Cape Town) →
- Address: 36 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town City Centre
- Price: Specialty coffee at standard café prices; full breakfast and lunch menu.
- Hours: Open early daily (often late midweek) — check the official site for current times.
- Site: za.truth.coffee
