REGULARS
The glass goes in a freezer at minus twenty first, purely so it does not crack when it goes into the second one at minus eighty-five. That is the whole trick, and it is the reason the milk sets against the sides while the middle stays liquid.
Why go
Eddy and Prem Pan opened this room just after Christmas 2025 and had lines down Little La Trobe Street within weeks, selling more than 600 glasses of one drink a day. The drink is dirty coffee, a format credited to Bear Pond Espresso in Tokyo and since spread through Asia, and the argument for doing it this cold is a cook's argument. There is no ice and no steamed milk, so nothing dilutes what came out of the roast. "The last thing I want is to dilute the flavour I've worked so hard to develop," Eddy told Broadsheet. He spent seven years as head roaster at St Ali, holds a Q grader certificate, and roasts every bean himself at a site in Balwyn. The milk is full-cream St David Dairy infused with vanilla bean, against a Brazilian and Colombian blend he describes as nutty and chocolatey. They make every syrup, puree and foam in house.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Dirty -85C. If the queue has beaten you to it, the 18-hour cold brew with redcurrant, grape and passionfruit syrup, or the Pomelo Sunrise on Ethiopian cold brew. Then the garlic bread, which Tori's bakes for them with a sweeter cream cheese filling than their own.
- Avoid: rolling up mid-morning without a plan. And do not arrive after 4pm; that is closing, every day.
What locals & experts say
- Broadsheet Melbourne put it on the Hot List and wrote that it
has the whole city talking.
2 - Eddy Pan, owner and roaster, on why the drink is not a gimmick:
I don't want specialty coffee to feel like an exclusive club or something intimidating. I want to bridge the gap between the high-end coffee world and new coffee drinkers. A drink like the Dirty -85C is the perfect bridge. It's visual, fun, and delicious for someone just starting their coffee journey, but the technical precision behind it satisfies the experts.
1 - One masthead only. Time Out Melbourne, Concrete Playground and Urban List were checked on 1 August 2026 and none has covered this cafe. Both sources above are Broadsheet. That is worth knowing before treating the buzz as consensus.
Good to know
- Where: 38-40 Little La Trobe Street, ground floor.
- Timing: daily 9am to 4pm. Get there early.
- Booking: none.
- The credential: Q grading is the specialty-coffee industry's sensory-assessment licence, the nearest thing the trade has to a sommelier qualification.3
- Safety: Victoria publishes no per-venue hygiene rating. Safe Food Victoria's register of court convictions under the Food Act 1984 was read in full on 1 August 2026 and does not list this venue.4
Verdict
should-visit — The glass goes into a freezer at minus twenty first, only so it does not crack when it hits the second freezer at minus eighty-five. A barista lifts it out with metal tongs, pours in full-cream St David Dairy milk infused with vanilla, and the milk sets against the glass while the middle stays liquid and brutally cold. Then a ristretto goes through the centre and bleeds into the frozen edges. Eddy Pan spent seven years as head roaster at St Ali, holds a Q grader certificate and roasts every bean himself in Balwyn, and his reason for all this is not the video: no ice and no steamed milk means nothing waters down the cup. They were selling 600 a day within weeks of opening after Christmas 2025. Go early, get the Dirty, take a piece of the garlic bread they have Tori's make sweeter for them.