Umee Cafe
A phin is a small metal filter that sits on top of the cup and drips through in its own time, and that is what this room is built around.
Why go
Melbourne treats Vietnamese coffee as one line on a specials board in most places. Umee's own account of itself is that it treats the method as the point, running traditional phin brewing alongside an egg coffee it calls Hanoi Dawn and a house drink called Butter Brew (What's On Melbourne). Egg coffee is a Hanoi invention from the years when milk was scarce: yolk whipped with condensed milk into a thick foam and poured over hot coffee, so the top half is closer to a dessert than a drink. The room is small, red-toned and soft-lit, at the west end of Little Collins near Southern Cross. Everything in this paragraph comes from the cafe itself, because nobody else has written about it. That is the honest state of the evidence, and it is why this entry does not tell you the coffee is good.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a phin, and let it finish before you stir. Hanoi Dawn if you want the egg coffee. Butter Brew if you want the one they invented. Ask what the seasonal drink is.
- Avoid: going for banh mi. No source describes sandwiches or rice plates here. Also avoid a late arrival, because this is a morning room.
What locals & experts say
- The venue's own copy, on the council's listing platform, which states that listings are self-reported and not verified by the City of Melbourne:
At its heart, Umee is a modern Vietnamese cafe that celebrates the craft of specialty Vietnamese coffee while presenting it in a way that feels fresh, thoughtful, and approachable.
That is a claim by the business, not a judgment by anyone else.1 - Time Out Melbourne, 42 Best Cafes, Autumn/Winter 2026 edition: Umee is not in it.2
- Broadsheet Melbourne: no venue page, no article, and no mention in its own guide to where to find Vietnamese egg coffee in Melbourne, which is where a serious phin bar in the CBD would be expected to appear.3
- No chef vote. All 74 Melbourne industry picks were checked on 1 August 2026 and none names it.
Good to know
- Where: 585 Little Collins Street, at the western end of the CBD near Southern Cross.
- Timing: it opens around 7.30am on weekdays and 8.30am at weekends, per a secondary summary. The council listing publishes no hours at all, so confirm.
- Booking: walk-in.
- Website: none found. The cafe runs on Instagram, which this project keeps out of the website field.
- Evidence caveat: everything descriptive above traces back to the business. No independent source has assessed this coffee.
- Hygiene: Victoria publishes no consumer-facing food-hygiene rating, so there is no Australian equivalent of an FSA score to record.
Verdict
listed — Phin is the method worth caring about here: a small metal filter sitting on the cup, dripping slowly through a dark roast, usually onto condensed milk. Umee says it builds around that, with an egg coffee called Hanoi Dawn and a house drink called Butter Brew, in a small red-toned room at the west end of Little Collins. That is the whole of what can be said, because the description comes from the cafe's own copy on a council listing page that states it does not verify listings, and no third party has written a word about it. It is absent from Time Out's forty-two-cafe list and from Broadsheet's own Vietnamese egg coffee guide, which is where it would show up if the coffee were notable. Melbourne is not a city where an unassessed coffee shop gets the benefit of the doubt. Worth a look if you are on that block. Listed until somebody independent tastes it.