15 best Mumbai cafes for first timers

The fifteen highest-scoring cafes on the map, ranked on the same nine weighted factors as everywhere else. If you have never worked out of a cafe in Mumbai and do not want your first attempt to be the one that puts you off, start at the top of this list.

  1. Bombay Coffee House4.0Built for people with laptops, and honest about it. The best odds in Bandra of a table, a plug and three quiet hours.
  2. Cogs and Brews Cafe3.9Billed as one of India's first dedicated study-and-business cafes: a walk-in workspace cafe (not a coworking space, no ID or paperwork needed) with separate casual and deep-focus seating areas.
  3. Shelter Cafe x Coffee by Javaphile3.6Plug points at most tables and light from the right direction. A working cafe that also happens to be pleasant.
  4. Taj Mahal Tea House3.4Forty teas, eighty seats and soft light in a Bandra bungalow. Does dates and deadlines equally well.
  5. The Bagel Shop3.4Quiet, comfortable, and one of the few Bandra rooms where a two-person meeting is not a shouting match.
  6. The Yoga House3.4The quietest room in Bandra, in a bungalow behind Carter Road. Vegetarian, ayurvedic, genuinely calm.
  7. Kala Ghoda Cafe3.4White walls, enormous glass doors, and the calm that Kala Ghoda's lanes are supposed to have.
  8. Blue Tokai — New Excelsior3.4Specialty coffee inside a 1930s cinema, with a terrace. The best-value work cafe in Fort.
  9. Araku Coffee3.4An 1897 building, a modbar, and a reading area someone actually curated. Behind the Taj, and worth finding.
  10. Starbucks — Horniman Circle3.4India's first Starbucks, in a colonial-era banking hall. The building is the reason to choose it.
  11. Bombay Coffee House — Ballard Estate3.4Old-world room, generous portions, and the best interview table in Ballard Estate.
  12. Blue Tokai — Nariman Point3.4The closest decent coffee to Marine Drive, and the nearest thing Nariman Point has to a third place.
  13. Third Wave Coffee — Lokhandwala3.4A Third Wave Coffee outlet in the Lokhandwala shopping stretch, part of the chain's wider Mumbai rollout.
  14. Third Wave Coffee — Santacruz West3.4Above a Crossword bookstore at the Linking Road/Juhu Tara Road junction.
  15. Starbucks — BKC (The Capital)3.4A Starbucks outlet inside The Capital office tower in BKC.