Good coffee exists in every major European city. Finding it takes five minutes of preparation and almost no effort once you are there.

Google Maps Filter

Open Google Maps, search "specialty coffee" or "third wave coffee" in the city you are visiting, filter by highest rated, and look at recent reviews. Do this before you travel and save three or four options near your accommodation. The reviews are not perfect but the pattern is reliable: if twelve people in the last six months have mentioned single origin or filter coffee, the place is doing something right.

Zoom out and check the neighbourhood too. Specialty coffee tends to cluster. If there is one good place on a street, there are usually two more within a few hundred metres.

The Breakfast Rule

Cafes that serve a genuinely good breakfast nearly always have better coffee than cafes that do not. This correlation is not absolute, but it holds often enough to use as a quick shortcut. A place that cares about its eggs and its bread cares about its espresso. A place with a counter full of plastic-wrapped pastries probably does not.

Specialty Coffee Instagram

Most mid-sized European cities have at least one Instagram account dedicated to rating or documenting the local specialty coffee scene. Search the city name plus "specialty coffee" or "kaffeebar" or "caffè specialty" depending on the country. These accounts are run by enthusiasts who have tried everything. One good account is worth more than any guidebook entry.

Ask at a Good Restaurant

If you have dinner somewhere genuinely good, ask the staff where they drink coffee in the morning. Restaurants take their suppliers seriously and are often connected to the same quality network as the best independent cafes. This works particularly well in cities where the restaurant scene is strong.

What to Skip

McCafe and its equivalents are not worth the time. Neither are the large Italian chains in airports and transport hubs. Costa and Starbucks abroad are identical to Costa and Starbucks at home. The point is finding something specific to where you are. That is always available; it just requires a small amount of searching first.